Inspiring children to grow & learn

Oh My Gosh – Welcome to one of my favourite weeks of the whole year! It's the few days in March that encompass World Book Day and International Women's Day. So here is the book I am reading with my son at the moment. We loved The Last Bear by Hannah Gold so we are now immersing ourself in the Californian coast and whale watching. It's wonderful.

I know there are benefits to be had from AI. There are a few people gathering to call for those in power to make sure that AI companies can't scrape creative work and automatically train based on others' work. It's hard enough trying to invest in something creative and getting something off the ground without worrying about companies stealing people's ideas, creativity, design, illustration etc. in order to recreate without proper payment. All the authors, illustrators and designers I have worked with and work with, bring their experience, creativity and expertise – they are all brilliant. When an author wants to quote someone else, we check it's okay to use those words. When an author wants to use someone's artwork, we check it's okay. This should be default and not an opt out thing. If you are interested, take a look at @jo_rooks_art 's posts. Thanks @marionibird for liking so that this came up on my feed…

Here's the thing: Step-by-step to Spelling (9-11) Who is it for? Children who are learning to spell the Year 5 & 6 common exception wordlist. (In England, Year 5 & 6 is age 9 to 11 years old but your child might be ready to learn these at a different point.) Why is it good? Because I have made these with very short bursts of practice. The spellings aren't learnt and forgotten – they appear for 5 days in a short burst each day. The way to practise them is #multisensory which helps children to make links with the meaning of the word, a little sketch and the way it is written. There are common letter patterns which help to make the group of words. You can set up a really tiny habit to learn how to practise spellings. It's all laid out in a really easy-to-use format so you, as a parent, can pick it up and help really quickly. It has all the Year 5 & 6 common exception words in one bright yellow book. a)You are less likely to lose it and b) You know you are working through all those words in the book and you can focus on ONE thing. This helps some children rather than a book that covers lots of different aspects of learning all at the same time. What's next? Actually, I haven't made anything for children who have worked all of these out! Because these are massively tricky and once your child knows these the new words you learn are likely to be subject specific words that you'll come across as you are studying. #spellingresources #learntospell #year5parents #year6parents #commonexceptionwords #commonexceptionwordresources #pedagogy #teacherpublisher #parentteacherpublisher #multisensoryspelling

I'm reading a lot about Ofsted at the moment. There's a TES article today that I will read a bit later if you are interested. I found this in my local vintage emporium a few years ago. It's a report on schools in England and Wales from 1879-1880. A good reminder that generally the system is a lot is better than then thank goodness and there have always been people that report on schools. Still stuff to change though and I think we are in a current situation where the system isn't quite aligned with families/children in our society. (Ask me in a pub and I will talk about this for a while..!) Have a good day – hope it is sunnier where you are.