Hey there, Tappers…
What a lovely May Bank Holiday week! Four days teaching – and half term not far away! ⛱️☀️
If we just ignore the KS2 Sats and the looming GCSE/A-level season it would be a very relaxing month…
One exciting event on the school calendar is of course…sports day! And Teacher Tapp has you covered there too! Our May prize draw will give £500 💰 to make your sports day the best ever 🥇.
Invest in new equipment, get a new PA system – you can even put it towards water guns for an end of event water fight!
All the terms and conditions can be found here.
Where are pupils on their best behaviour?
This week we asked two questions – where are your pupils behaving at their best…and worst. 👼😈
Both in primary and secondary, ‘indoor lessons’ came out best with 84% and 80% of the votes.
And that makes sense, right? Given this is when teachers have the highest level of supervision.
What of the opposite: worst behaviour?
Here, primary and secondary diverge, with lunchtimes in primary the top choice (68%), whereas secondary split between lesson transitions and lunchtime (39% and 42% respectively).
It’s also interesting to note ‘none of these’ was given by 4% of primary school teachers, compared to 7% of secondary 🤔. Is that student behaviour is bad everywhere here? Or somewhere else?! Read on to find out…
And how about the subject reporting worst behaviour in lessons? When we looked across all the secondary subjects, it was science who reported the worst behaviour was found in lessons (7%).
Why do you think behaviour is so poor at lunchtime? And how can schools improve it? Let us know what you think on socials or via the app 💬.
Anyone for tea?
When the initial responses came in for our ‘How do you arrange hot drinks’ question – my eyebrows were raised.
Where was this free tea and coffee, and how had I been so unlucky to have worked in schools where you had to take part in a complicated rota that everyone begrudged and rarely adhered to?
Well, it seems the answer is – if you’re in the state sector, you have a roughly 50/50 chance of working in a school where the tea and coffee is free – and if you are in a primary, you’ve got roughly the same odds that the milk will be included too🥛☕️🫖.
If you want to improve your chances further for free tea and coffee – go to London (73%) but avoid the North East and Yorkshire (41%).
As a positive – this is a sizeable increase compared to when we first asked you in 2020 when only 43% of state primary schools and 45% of state secondary schools were providing free tea and coffee.
SEND numbers
The numbers from the Department for Education tell us that the percentage of pupils with SEND has increased – but what does that actually look like in an average class?
The most common response in primary was 5+ (56%), whereas in secondary we see a more even split in the responses, with a just under one in ten saying no SEND pupils, and the rest of you more or less evenly reporting 1-2 (31%), 3-4 (31%) and 5+ (29%).
When looking just at primary, there are far more teachers in KS2 classrooms saying you had 5+ SEND pupils compared to those in EYFS and KS1 (49% vs 59%). And this makes sense – many children aren’t diagnosed before KS2.
Now transition for year sixes going into year seven ramps up a gear, are you preparing for more SEND pupils for the move up to secondary? What are you providing for these pupils and is it different to previous years? Let us know what you think on email, socials or through the app…📧.
The rise (and fall?) of the Mocksteds
Mocksteds – a sort of practice Ofsted inspection – are designed to spot issues ahead of real inspections. However, they often get a frosty reception from classroom teachers and are frequently blamed on the high accountability culture around inspections.
What about schools that have already bagged an outstanding grade? Or where received ‘requires improvement’?
Those of you in RI of Inadequate schools are the most likely to have experienced a Mocksted this year (42%).
In 2021, very few schools were using mocksteds – probably because of the pandemic.
Things went back up in 2022, but it’s a rocky path since.
This year just 30% you have had, or will soon have a mocksted, a drop of 6 percentage points in secondary, and 5 percentage points in primary compared to last year.
But note that teachers in outstanding schools are the next most likely. Given the exemption is now lifted, and outstanding schools are more wary of their grading, there’s more impetus for these schools to worry about Ofsted than previously.
When going by regions, there isn’t much difference across the country – but we can see that the North West have the lowest number of mocksteds (26%) and Yorkshire and the North East have the highest (35%).
Mocksteds – do they work? How does having a mocksted impact upon your workload? Tell us your thoughts through the app, over email, or on the socials ✋.
Top events
This week’s top event is…
Arts Council England and their ‘Teaching for Creativity’ online webinar 🤩.
This is an on-demand event. There are more face-to-face AND virtual AND on-demand events all for you to peruse on the events tab in the app – check it out!
Ups and Downs
On the rise (ish) 📈
Mobile phones in lessons Not quite a rise BUT no change in the number of you telling us a child took a phone out in a secondary classroom. 36% in 2022, then 38% last year, and then 38% this year.
Heading down 📉
Teachers reaching for text books This week you told us 24% of secondary teachers have used a text book at least once a week, but in 2018 there were 43% of you.
Daily Reads
Our most read daily read this week was the blog: How we can cut teacher working hours
If you would like to read the rest you can find them here 👇
