Newsround

What’s been happening in the news this week?

• What does inclusive high quality teaching look like? Take a look at my article for Infomentor here.
• Preparing for SATs: what works? Read my blog for Optimus here so you are SATs-ready.
• What are the 10 Best Ways to Save Money in Your School? Read my blog for Third Space Learning here.
• Does anyone still use lollipop questioning? Read my blog for Teacher Toolkit here.
• Discover why outdoor learning is a must in my blog for Collins here.
• How can we stop students from cheating in exams? Read my blog for Lessonbox here.
• Research claims that children who have confidence in their own musical abilities are more likely to continue their music education than those with a poor ‘musical self-concept’.
• According to research if you want to have native-like knowledge of another language you should ideally start before age 10.
• How do you close the gap in skills between disadvantaged pupils and their peers? The Department for Education (DfE) has launched two programmes worth £13.5m to give families extra support to help boost preschool children’s language and communication skills at home. They are to be given advice on how to sing nursery rhymes, teach the alphabet and a range of other activities they can do with children before they start school.
• A new study by the UCL Institute of Education says that teachers and teaching assistants are more content in their jobs than workers in other professions. Bryson, Stokes and Wilkinson (2018) found the following:

School employees are no more stressed about their work than other “like” employees. Quite the opposite in fact: compared to similar employees elsewhere they express greater job contentment.

* First, school employees are no more stressed about their work than other “like” employees. Quite the opposite in fact: compared to similar employees elsewhere they express greater job contentment. They also express greater job satisfaction.

* Second, we find organizational commitment levels are higher in schools than they are in other workplaces.

* Third, when we compare changes in employee wellbeing and contentment within schools over time, and see whether these are related to changes in schools’ performance, we find that what matters for school performance is employees’ organisational commitment. Improvements in job satisfaction and job contentment are not linked to changes in workplace performance.

* Fourth, aspects of the job and working environment that engender higher satisfaction and contentment are common across school and non-school employees: higher pay, greater job control, reduced job demands, and greater job security.

• A randomised controlled trial published in Psychology Research and Behavior Management assessed the benefits of introducing yoga and mindfulness into primary classrooms and found pupils in the intervention group showed a significantly greater improvement in psychosocial and emotional quality of life compared with pupils who received standard care. See also smilingmind.com