Teach-Primary-Issue-20.1

I S SUE 2 0 . 1 Contents REGULARS 8 BREAKTIME 11 6 WAYS... ...to stop parents feeling left out 19 HOW I DO IT Dive into fictional worlds, and encourage reading for pleasure, with character passports 20 MEDIUM-TERM PLAN A six-week French unit on tasting food and giving opinions 33 THIS WAY! School improvement advice for headteachers and SLT – this issue we’re looking at procurement VOICES 13 KEVIN HARCOMBE Farage’s ‘war’ against unions could just be a bark with no bite, but the potential damage is very real 15 A LETTER TO... The education secretary: the dreaded weekly spelling test is causing serious self-esteem issues for pupils across the country. And for what purpose? 17 UNDERCOVER TEACHER When you love your job deeply, recognising when it’s hurting you can be hard – but it’s essential to keep a grip on life outside school SPECIAL SECTION STEM SPECIAL 38 HOW NOT TO USE AI We all feel the draw of a Friday afternoon timesaver, but tech-assisted planning is only as good as the info you feed it 41 CODING FOR UNDERSTANDING Designing tasks that build computational thinkers will support your curriculum far beyond computing 44 NOW AND THEN Staying safe online requires being on top of new developments in a continually evolving landscape, but we mustn’t forget to keep our eyes on the basics 47 PLAY IT AGAIN Using both digital and analogue games in maths can help solidify concepts and expand understanding in theory and practice teachwire.net facebook.com/teachwire twitter.com/teachprimary charley.rogers@theteachco.com We want to hear from you! Get in touch with your rants, comments, photos and ideas. We’re all We want to make sure our magazine is a brilliant resource for teachers and are always striving to improve. We love hearing from real teachers about what they liked and what they would change. Got feedback about this issue? Contact us via the details in the yellow box below – we’d love to hear from you! ears! www.teachwire.net | 5