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Along with being a primary school teacher and leader, blogging is where this all started for Aidan. If it wasn't for his passion for writing and sharing his learning and experiences, he wouldn't be working as an education consultant with schools across the country today. Shared best practice should be available to all and here on the Aidan Severs Consulting blog you can get ideas for making a difference in your own school. The blog is also a great place to learn exactly the kind of work that Aidan can partner with your school on.
What's It Like To Work With Aidan?
Teachers' and leaders' testimonials can help you to learn more about how I will work with you and your staff.
Aidan Severs
Jan 146 min read
Why You Don't Need An Intent Statement (But Why It Is Actually Useful To Have One)
Why don't you need an intent subject for your subject's curriculum? Because no one says you have to, not even Ofsted... However, whilst ‘intent statements’ aren’t a necessity they can help curriculum makers and teachers. How so? Well, they provide a touchstone (a test, or benchmark) for any curriculum development and teaching.
Aidan Severs
Oct 6, 20254 min read
Replacing Onerous Primary Assessment with Better Monitoring and Evaluation (Part 2)
In the first blog post in this series , I posed the following question: "What can subject leaders and school leaders do to replace onerous primary assessment practices with better monitoring and evaluation?" I answered the question too: " To facilitate this, I would recommend an agreed reporting format which would ensure that similar information was being collected and reported across all subjects." And then I went on to say: " I've called this part 1 as I'm beginning to thin
Aidan Severs
Jun 18, 20252 min read
Replacing Onerous Primary Assessment with Better Monitoring and Evaluation (Part 1)
If you read my recent post on assessing foundation subjects in primary and were left wondering about the lack of evidence and data that...
Aidan Severs
May 19, 20254 min read
Why You Might Need To Rewrite Your Curriculum (and Why You Might Not)
You've spent ages writing your primary foundation subject curriculum and by now you've probably spent time rewriting it too, or at least revising it. Curriculum rewrite: assessment Now it's time to have a think about how to assess the pupils, what with the content all done and dusted. But the more you think, the more you realise it's not that easy. Especially since there are a few things you know you must avoid: Endless APP-style grids Massive teacher workload Paperwork for
Aidan Severs
Mar 31, 20253 min read
Starter for 5: Team Leadership
Leading a team for the first time can be exciting but nerve-wracking. Many of us are given such a role with little to no training simply because we were good at the core business of the organisation we work in. Usually, the role up until the point you become a leader has nothing to do with team leadership and requires a completely different set of skills. If you're a new team leader, the this is the blog post for you! One of the best things you can do as a team leader is reme
Aidan Severs
Dec 17, 20242 min read
Subject Leadership: How Can I Keep On Top Of Things Throughout The Year?
The exceedingly short answer to this question is to download your free subject leadership workbook here or by using the link in the header above! You're a busy class teacher. But you also have the responsibility to lead a subject across the school. You spend a lot of your time planning and resourcing your lessons and everything else you have to do to be ready to teach. You feel like keeping on top of your additional leadership work is difficult to manage. You're not even sur
Aidan Severs
Sep 24, 20242 min read
Starter for 10: Subject Leadership
Whether you're new to your subject leadership role or have had the position for a while, it's true that what is expected of subject leaders these days can feel like quite a lot! Not only are there high expectations of you, there can often be very little guidance in how to do the job. Although I work with schools and their subject leaders in various ways, I also like to share what I've learned for free via my blog. Here are a few starting points for subject leaders as they rea
Aidan Severs
Sep 17, 20243 min read
Developing Teacher Subject Knowledge
It's no surprise if I say that in order to teach something well you need to know it well yourself. And in case my saying that isn't convincing enough, here we have it from the excellent and influential What Makes Great Teaching? report from the Sutton Trust: "The most effective teachers have deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, and when teachers’ knowledge falls below a certain level it is a significant impediment to students’ learning." - What Makes Great Teaching? -
Aidan Severs
Dec 12, 20232 min read
How To Observe A Lesson
As I was putting together my 'Starter for 5: Monitoring and Evaluation' blog post I realised that, although I talk about lesson observation with leaders who I work with, I hadn't actually blogged about it. I thought I'd better change that (Edit: this post is now part of that post!). Professor Rob Coe's excellent blog post 'Classroom observation: it’s harder than you think' outlines several ways in which observing teachers teaching is quite difficult to do. In short, he outlin
Aidan Severs
Dec 4, 20236 min read
Starter for 5: Monitoring and Evaluation
1. Monitoring Your Subject 101 "Many new middle leaders are effectively thrown in at the deep end and are expected, at least until they are given training, to monitor and evaluate their subject. Often the only experience of monitoring and evaluating that these leaders have is what has been done to them... To try to provide some nutshell clarity I often share the following pointers for effective M&E." https://www.aidansevers.com/post/monitoring-your-subject-101 2. How To Obser
Aidan Severs
Nov 29, 20232 min read
Formal Assessments: Are You Trying To Make Them Do Too Much?
If you really interrogate what you are trying to get out of your formal assessments, I wonder what you'd find. The true purpose of a...
Aidan Severs
Oct 16, 20232 min read
Questions for Subject Leaders: SEND
Although by no means exhaustive, this list of questions that subject leaders might use as a reflective tool as they lead staff in the...
Aidan Severs
Oct 11, 20233 min read
New Subject Leader? Need Training? This One's For You.
Are you a new subject leader? Then this blog post is for you. A compilation of where to find free CPD on my blog and podcast.
Aidan Severs
Oct 1, 20232 min read
S1 E8 - Providing CPD as a Subject Leader with Stuart Rogers
In this, the 8th episode of The Subject Leaders Podcast, Stuart Rogers, another Computing primary subject leader, answers the following questions: How can subject leaders decide on what professional development needs there are? How can subject leaders develop staff so that teaching and learning in their subject improves? What are the implications and outcomes of using instructional coaching as a subject leader? Find this podcast episode on your preferred podcast service:...
Aidan Severs
Jun 8, 202321 min read
S1 E6 - Subject Leadership, Leadership Style and Barriers to Teaching Computing with Allen Tsui
In episode 6 of The Subject Leaders Podcast Aidan speaks to Allen Tsui, a primary (and A-level) computing leader and teacher.
Aidan Severs
May 25, 202315 min read
S1 E5 - Setting Objectives, the National Curriculum & Developing DT Knowledge with Sarah Haigh
The Subject Leaders Podcast S1 E5 - Setting Objectives, the National Curriculum & Developing Teachers' DT Subject Knowledge with Sarah Haigh
Aidan Severs
May 18, 202319 min read
S1 E4: Contextualising Curriculum, Implementation & Teaching Primary History with Vinay Verma
In the fourth episode of The Subject Leaders Podcast we talk to Vinay Verma, an early career teacher and primary history leader. In this episode Vinay and Aidan explore how subject leaders might go about contextualising a school's curriculum in any subject and how to be sensitive to the needs of the school when implementing change. Vinay also shares teaching strategies for teaching the primary history curriculum, answering these three questions: How can subject leaders make s
Aidan Severs
May 11, 20231 min read
S1 E3: Promoting your Subject and Monitoring and Evaluating Maths with Kieran Mackle
The third episode of The Subject Leaders Podcast features podcaster and author Kieran Mackle. He's well-known for his Thinking Deeply About Primary Education (#TDaPE) podcast and his book Thinking Deeply About Primary Mathematics. In this episode Kieran looks back on his time as maths subject leader across three school and shares his knowledge about promoting and encouraging enthusiasm for the subject you lead before sharing his thoughts about assessment in primary maths. Fin
Aidan Severs
May 4, 202322 min read
S1 E2: SMSC Development, Supporting Teachers and Outdoor Learning with Christian Kitley
An outdoor learning subject leader talks about designing curriculum, developing teachers and contributing to pupils' SMSC development.
Aidan Severs
Apr 26, 202322 min read
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