5 excel functions every teacher needs to know

Whether you’re on the SLT or it’s your first year in the classroom, some of your time will be spent analysing pupil data. Taking a bit of time to learn the following excel functions will work wonders to speed up and enhance that analysis Conditional formatting Conditional formatting can give you an instant visual impression from your data. There are some basic built in options straight on your menu bar, but spending a few minutes here learning...

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top 5 teaching blogs

top 5 teaching blogs http://teachertoolkit.me/ Ross McGill is the inventor of the 5 minute lesson plan and is active on his blog and twitter about anything and everything related to education, particularly for those in, or aspiring to senior leadership. http://blogsync.edutronic.net/ A collection of teaching blogs on a different theme each month. It’s well worth a look through the archives. http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/series/the-secret-teacher An...

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5 steps for efficient homework

5 steps for effective and efficient homework Whether you are setting homework enthusiastically because you think it’s valuable or begrudgingly because it’s school policy, following a few simple checks will prevent it taking over your life, while remaining effective for pupils.. Consider question Choose something that is going to be easy to mark. Use exam questions with a mark scheme rather than a free form activity where you’re going...

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Top 5 productivity blogs

There’s a whole world of productivity advice out there but, to stop you being unproductive by reading everything, here’s 5 of the best: time management ninja Feel like you’re wasting time? “The mission of this site it to help individuals and companies reclaim their time” lifehacker   Tips for every single area of your life. Productivity specific links here: productivity Michael Hyatt A variety of leadership topics including...

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start here

How do I work smarter not harder? Do you feel like the endless list of emails, spreadsheets, reports, marking and paperwork gets in the way of the job you actually wanted to do.... teach?! Most of it is (hopefully) useful but it can be overwhelming. You think you need to work harder - get into work earlier, stay later, working every night and weekends. Don’t do that. Claim your life back. There will always be hard work to be done...

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marking and feedback

Marking often feels like a waste of time. The school marking policy wants constructive feedback  but does all the time you spend writing comments actually have an effect on the pupils? Do you feel like you’re writing the same comment over and over again. You need a feedback strategy. This automated feedback system takes time to set up, but once it is up and running it will do the work for you, generating the feedback comments and...

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manage email

Email is supposed to make communication quicker and easier, so why does it feel like it’s draining rather than saving your time? The inbox timewarp sucks away valuable time that you could have used for planning, or marking or even ... interacting with a real live pupil! Make email work for you, not against you, with these simple tips: check regularly Letting email build up will increase the stress level when you finally open...

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