1. Less is More with GCSE Revision 😮
We asked how much daily revision you thought a GCSE student should do in the Easter holidays and compared the results to when we last asked in 2018. Back in 2018, 65% of you said students should be doing three or more hours of revision each day during Easter. Now, that value is down at 43% – certainly a shift in opinion.
It really has raised more questions than answers though – why have we seen such a shift? Easter was two weeks earlier in 2018, but that won’t be all of it. At Teacher Tapp Towers we’ve speculated that it might be due to the pandemic shifting teachers views on external exams or simply that people value their ‘free’ time more than before. Let us know your thoughts on Twitter.
We’ve also broken down the data based on phase and subject – and there were some teachers who felt more revision was necessary! Primary teachers were the most lenient on students, just over two-thirds of primary teachers thought that a GCSE student should do two hours or less.
Secondary teachers felt slightly differently – in particular science teachers! 60% of science teachers said that GCSE students should be doing more than two hours of revision each day in the holidays.
2. Drop in Attendance Awards 🥇
Awards for attendance have always been contentious, sometimes students who have good reasons to miss school miss out. There have been claims of unfairness here. Back in 2019, nearly three-quarters of teachers said that their school gives out awards for good (or 100%) attendance – but is that still true today?
Not really! You said that there’s been a significant reduction in such awards. Now, such awards are far less common, although they remain slightly more popular in secondary schools than in primary. 59% of teachers in secondary schools say their school still gives these awards out, but only 43% of primary schools do.
Why might this be? Certainly, 100% attendance has been tricky to come by over the last few years, given that there’s been a pandemic – and many schools are still experiencing Covid-related absences. Is there more to it than that? 🤔
Will this trend stick – well watch this space 👀, we’ll report back in a few years to see if it’s a Covid-related blip or a sign of things to come!
3. Hypothetical Headteachers
We asked non-SLT Tappers if you’d like to be a headteacher one day. Male primary teachers were most likely to want to become headteachers by a fair margin 👨🏼🏫
Given the disparity in gender within the profession, over 50% of female teachers said that they’d ‘definitely not’ want to be a headteacher. Not that there’s anything wrong with this 😊 There are a high number of teachers in general who have no interest in being a headteacher!
Carrying on with the headteacher theme, we asked if you woke up tomorrow and were a fully-fledged headteacher, what would be the first thing you’d change in your school? In hindsight, and thank you to our Twitter followers, we should’ve included CPD as an option *noted for next time* but there was an overwhelming outcome with ‘behaviour’ being the first thing that you’d change, particularly in secondary schools.
This got us thinking 🤔 which aspects of behaviour would you change?
4. Hi-Vis Vests 🦺
Last week, we asked if you were required to wear a hi-vis vest when on duty, a question that caused a fair bit of conversation on Twitter 🗨️ It turns out, secondary schools were most likely to be required to wear a hi-vis vest with the majority of you not required to wear one at all.
For those of you who choose to wear one or are required to wear one, conversations on Twitter cited that the main reasons are as a deterrent for negative behaviour and to help staff quickly identify their colleagues in times of need.
Finally… we know you love the daily read, so here are the ones from last week
The most read tip from the past week was: Is Swedish education on the decline? 📉
And here are the rest for your reference:
- How do students prepare for exams? 🧐
- Is the word ‘improvement’ received well in teaching?
- How is the Early Career Framework fairing for ECTs, their mentors and school leaders? 👩🏫
- Is a holistic approach to teacher performance management the best way forwards?
- How are simple ideas quickly over-complicated in education?
