Seating in primary classrooms is never neutral – it shapes attention, peer talk & identity. Structured groupings can aid collaboration, while others argue cognitive load favours forward-facing rows Daniel Muijs Paul A. Kirschner Which arrangement best balances in your context?

There’s something quietly mesmerising about these shots Claire Stoneman The symmetry, the light, the sense of liminal space. It feels like a metaphor for education itself: ordered yet transitional, austere yet full of possibility... Or am I thinking too deeply?

We often justify “bleak” narratives in schools as toughening children for the real world. But research suggests fear and deficit frames heighten anxiety and sap belonging, while hope tied to clear strategies is more protective. Are we mistaking pessimism for preparation?

"That's not real teaching then is it?" "Isn't that just crayons and that?" "You just did it to work with women, I know your game!" And these are family members and friends...

Stuart Rowntree I think it’s even worse in early years. Male student teachers often have their motives questioned.

Ownership & politics of legacy media matter. It's lazy, but easy. A few billionaires shape coverage. Demonising immigrants deflects anger from structural crises - housing, health, wages - onto scapegoats. Look over here...not at us.

Stuart Rowntree And this one from Australia journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

I've read this before, I think. The “moral panic” around men in early years says more about our culture than about children’s needs. Media suspicion + lazy stereotypes turn care into “women’s work” and men into risks. The real losers? Kids, starved of diverse role models.

Hmm. "Censory smearing" is real. Words like fascist/racist get thrown around too easily to close debate. But hyperbole doesn’t erase fact that some behaviours are reprehensible. Being humbled is sometimes necessary; dismissal of all critique as smear is a dodge for some...

Stuart Rowntree I've also had it the other way as well: "They needed a male teacher to discipline them," "You're a man, can you sort this out," "They'll behave for you, because you are aman etc.

Six week school breaks at age 8 was 3% of your life. Six weeks at 40 is 0.3% of it. Childhood summers felt endless because they were vast slices of our lived time. Adulthood shrinks them not by days lost, but by proportion. And it stinks.

Helping children distinguish reading for pleasure from reading for purpose matters. One nourishes identity & joy, the other secures knowledge & discernment. Teaching both frames ensures reading not performative drudgery, but a habit of mind that flexes between delight & inquiry.

Humanities so often miss out in CPD because compliance (safeguarding, SEND) and core subjects absorb the oxygen. But when history, geography & RE are undernourished, pupils lose breadth, cultural capital and intellectual curiosity. Narrow CPD = narrowing minds. Teacher Tapp

‘Great schools take a different route. They start with purpose before anything is planned. They ask, “What do we want pupils to know, understand and be able to do by the time they leave us?’ Purpose before process! Yes 🙌🏼