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1. We’re all goin’ on a summer holiday! Are we?
The summer holidays are holidays, right? It’s not quite as clear cut as that…
Over 40% of teachers have already been into school so far in the summer holidays. With a further 40% planning to head in before term starts again.
Primary teachers of all seniorities have been into school a lot. Half of all primary teachers have visited their school at least once, and 90% of primary classroom teachers say they will go in before term starts again. By contrast, only 60% of secondary classroom teachers say they will.
Headteachers are more likely to go in compared to everyone else though, with practically all secondary heads heading into school before term starts again – most will probably be in this week for A-Level and GCSE results.
Around 90% of teachers have been checking their work emails over their so-called holiday and some of these emails have been causing anxiety. 📧
Headteachers are mostly like to have anxiety-inducing emails; over 50% of headteachers have received at least one. 😟 Props to the classroom teachers who haven’t opened a single one so far this holiday. They are truly having a rest!
Work aside – what are you getting up to otherwise? It may come as no surprise that holidays abroad are off-the-table for most of you this summer. If you have children, either camping or self-catering accommodation seems to be winning out. For those without, a hotel comes second behind self-catering accommodation.
Overall, around 25% of teachers aren’t taking a holiday away from home this summer, down significantly from the 40% who said they weren’t taking a holiday last year, but still not quite at the pre-pandemic levels of 20%.
2. We’re all lifelong learners!
Despite another challenging year, teachers have not taken their foot off the pedal when it comes to professional development.
Nearly 1-in-10 headteachers take part in a professional development sessions more than once a week! How can you find the time in the day? And more than half of all clasroom teachers are doing professional development sessions at least a couple of times each half term.
Most teachers are optimistic that professional development can help them in the future. Only 10% of teachers don’t think agree. Headteachers were very positive in their beliefs of such development sessions, with over 80% saying they strongly or somewhat agree, compared to 60% of classroom teachers.
Some of you have told us via feedback that you find certain types of CPD are more effective than others; so we may investigate this further in the future.
3. Teacher Tapp Summer Quiz Olympics!
In recent years, the percentage of pupils receiving Free School Meals has increased from around 14% in 2017 to nearly 20% in 2020! (Source). This is despite the maximum amount of income you can earn when on Universal Credit being only £7400.
Around 50% of you got this question correct, with slightly more teachers in the most deprived schools getting the question correct than otherwise.
How many of the 81 different GCSEs that you can take can you name?
Did you get Motor Vehicle and Road User Studies offered to students in Northern Ireland, and how about Biblical Hebrew?
Only 20% of teachers got this question correct – with the majority of teachers thinking there were fewer than 81. Less experienced teachers were more likely to get this question correct than more experienced teachers, showing that naivety sometimes helps!
Viva la West Country! The South West have rocketed to the top of the medal table this week with their third gold of the Summer Quiz. The Midlands are still in the hunt for the top spot, just a single win behind and more silver medals to boot. The East of England are still yet to be the region who get highest proportion of correct answers in a quiz question – can they break their duck this week?
| Region | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| South West | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Midlands | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Yorkshire and the North East | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| London | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| South East | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| North West | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| East of England | 0 | 2 | 5 |
4. Feel a sense of déjà vu?
Last week, Laura opened the door to find a former pupil of hers standing on the doorstep when she needed her boiler replacing! This incident inspired a set of questions…
It turns out many of you are in the same boat as Laura, with over 50% of you responding that you have seen a former students within the last month. Only 1-in-10 teachers have never seen a student they have previously taught – and this is primarily down to newer teachers who have a smaller pool of students to run into (or no pool at all!).
It wasn’t much of a challenge for you to remember their name either, 85% of you were able to rack your brain to find their name.
For many, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience to see former students, with only a handful of teachers responding negatively.
Several of you on social media also pointed out that you work with former pupils who have come back as teachers. The cycle of education goes on and on!
Call out for Primary colleagues
🚀At Teacher Tapp we are really interested in the views from primary teachers and we’d love to grow the number of you who use the app. If you know a primary colleague who you think would enjoy the daily insights that give an accurate picture of how thousands of colleagues are thinking please share Teacher Tapp with them! teachertapp.co.uk/get-the-app.
❓ If you’ve got any question suggestions then you can Contact Us via the menu in app or send us a tweet @TeacherTapp.
📰 We love sharing daily reads with you all on and we’re always on the look out for ones we’ve not featured. It’s really easy if you’d like to make a suggestion to do so here.
📣 And if you’d like a pack of posters/coasters to display in your school, to tell people about Teacher Tapp, then please fill in the form here!
Finally, we know you love the daily read, so here are the ones from last week
The most read tip this week was: Strategic laziness (suitable for all!)
And here are the rest for your reference:
