Caffeine. Teach. Read. Repeat.

I can't remember how I first came across Hamilton. It was on YouTube and may have been the Tony opening which made me curious. Over here in the UK, it didn't have the same buzz around it at the time, if any. I found videos of the songs performed at the White House to the Obamas and I became slightly obsessed. I registered for the pre-sale list for the UK show and listened to the soundtrack on repeat. I discovered there are few things as sweet as getting Lafayette's parts in Guns and Ships down for the first time. A few months later, I got the date when the tickets went on sale and a while after that, I bought my ticket. It was for the 99th UK performance and would be a few weeks after my 40th birthday. I booked everything I needed to for the weekend and started to countdown, even though it was over a year away at that point. I was going to see the Saturday matinee and on the Thursday before, during my lunch hour, I noticed I had a lot of messages from some online friends...

Firstly, apologies for the dated, rather obvious title (it's half-term and I don't have the patience or energy to think of anything better) but it perfectly encapsulates the two things this post is about: gender and the subject formerly known as SRE. Gender Like I'm sure most of us do, I've always tried to be aware of avoiding gender stereotypes in the classroom and actively try to incorporate equality as much as I can. I make sure the texts we read have strong female leads as well as male and that they don't rely on outdated male/female stereotypes, that strong, successful women and their achievements are taught as much as their male counterparts, and make sure I use the word 'parent' or 'adult' instead of 'mum' when referring to anything that happens at home. For example, avoiding, 'It's not down to your mum to do everything'. There are a thousand different other ways I make a conscious effort to foster equality in my classr...

My first blog post was about how we tried to spread a love of reading across the school. I thought I'd write a new blog about the things we have continued to do to, and the new things I have tried or am trying. Firstly, there may be some ideas which others may not have heard in 50 other different blogs, and secondly, it will remind me of all of the things I can remind staff at my school of when I do a staff meeting on it. Reading buddies We're now in our third year of having reading buddies in school and they continue to get even better. The bonds between the buddies are stronger and the impact on the child of having an adult in the school who is your reading advocate, your reader, your audience, your support and just your person appears to be huge. My reading buddy has now started turning up at my lunchtime maths group, bringing friends and joining in. Sometimes they just turn up to see what I'm doing. Sometimes it's just to play on the interactive board... One...