Teaching

top of page

Aidan Severs Consulting

Empowering, Enhancing and Enriching in Education

GET YOUR FREE SUBJECT LEADERSHIP WORKBOOK HERE

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.

Curriculum For All: What Schools Need To Know About What The Curriculum Review And The New Ofsted Framework Say About Inclusion

Curriculum For All: What Schools Need To Know About What The Curriculum Review And The New Ofsted Framework Say About Inclusion

Curriculum For All: What Schools Need To Know About What The Curriculum Review And The New Ofsted Framework Say About Inclusion

The key thing you need to be aware of with regards to the final report from the government-commissioned Curriculum and Assessment Review is right there in the title: Building a world-class curriculum for all . The writers of the review are at pains to communicate that the biggest change that needs to happen is with regard to inclusivity - a curriculum which works for all children. This, by the way, tallies with Ofsted's latest inspection framework that has specific headings

Nov 174 min read

Rethinking Differentiation: The Mixing Desk Model for Responsive, Inclusive Teaching

Rethinking Differentiation: The Mixing Desk Model for Responsive, Inclusive Teaching

Rethinking Differentiation: The Mixing Desk Model for Responsive, Inclusive Teaching

The Challenge of Meeting Every Child’s Needs You know that the children in your class(es) have needs which are many and varied. You want to meet those needs. But meeting all the different needs is difficult, time-consuming and draining. But it's got to be done. Why ‘What Works for Pupils with SEND Works for All’ Isn’t the Whole Story You've heard that "what works for pupils with SEND works for all pupils" but can't shake that nagging feeling that it's not that simple. Becaus

Nov 45 min read

The Challenge of Challenge: Defining What It Means in Your School

The Challenge of Challenge: Defining What It Means in Your School

The Challenge of Challenge: Defining What It Means in Your School

I recently started off a teacher training session with the following questions: What do we mean by challenge? Who should we be challenging? How often should we challenge them? I'd asked roughly the same questions of senior leaders earlier in the day and it led to some interesting discussions. We realised that there was a chance that when talking about challenge we could be talking at cross-purposes. When I asked the leaders the questions, I was trying to clarify the purpose o

Oct 203 min read

KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility

KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility

KS2 Continuous Provision: Gradual Release of Responsibility

No two weeks are quite the same when you're implementing continuous provision in key stage 2... Crucially there is a gradual release of responsbility which provides the necessary support for pupils to move towards independence.

KS2 Continuous Provision

Jul 163 min read

KS2 Continuous Provision: Ensuring Curriculum Coverage

KS2 Continuous Provision: Ensuring Curriculum Coverage

KS2 Continuous Provision: Ensuring Curriculum Coverage

One of the key challenges when designing and delivering continuous provision to any age group, but particularly in KS2, is ensuring that there is curriculum coverage. By delivering masterclasses, setting apprentice tasks, creating routines, providing scaffolds and carrying out check-ins and conferencing, continuous provision and curriculum coverage can be balanced well in KS2.

KS2 Continuous Provision

Jul 25 min read

Continuous Provision in KS2: FAQs

Continuous Provision in KS2: FAQs

Continuous Provision in KS2: FAQs

This blog explores how KS2 continuous provision - based on EYFS principles - can foster independence, creativity, and deep learning. It addresses common questions on adapting the approach to meet curriculum demands, setting up purposeful provision areas, ensuring progression and challenge, integrating effective assessment, and managing behaviour. Grounded in careful planning and adult guidance, it offers practical steps for implementation.

KS2 Continuous Provision

Jun 246 min read

Curriculum: The Sticky Problem of Sticky Knowledge

Curriculum: The Sticky Problem of Sticky Knowledge

Curriculum: The Sticky Problem of Sticky Knowledge

Icky name aside, the idea of identifiying sticky knowledge on behalf of pupils is a tricky one. The Origins of Sticky Knowledge I think...

May 266 min read

Personalising Challenge for Pupils Working at Greater Depth

Personalising Challenge for Pupils Working at Greater Depth

Personalising Challenge for Pupils Working at Greater Depth

If you are here for the blog post entitled ' Greater Depth: Pupil Pen Portraits and Personalised Challenge' then please use this link:...

Mar 176 min read

Reading Roles: Teaching Metacognitive Reading Comprehension Strategies

Reading Roles: Teaching Metacognitive Reading Comprehension Strategies

Reading Roles: Teaching Metacognitive Reading Comprehension Strategies

What is (or are) Reading Roles? Reading Roles is a resource designed to aid children’s metacognition when reading. Metacognition can be defined simply as ‘thinking about thinking’. Reading Roles takes familiar job titles and assigns them to reading strategies and skills thus giving children an easy-to-refer-to system for being more deliberate with their thinking during reading, with the ultimate goal of being able to comprehend texts. Most children will already understand wh

Jan 306 min read

Reading Roles Based on Research-Backed Reading Strategies

Reading Roles Based on Research-Backed Reading Strategies

Reading Roles Based on Research-Backed Reading Strategies

Explore effective Reading Strategies to enhance comprehension in students.

Jan 306 min read

Reading Roles Generic Reading Activity Exemplified

Reading Roles Generic Reading Activity Exemplified

Reading Roles Generic Reading Activity Exemplified

In my blog post Reading Roles: Teaching Metacognitive Reading Comprehension Strategies I mentioned a generic activity which can be used with any text. Here's that activity in full: The aim of this activity is to help children gain a better understanding of a text. It focuses on using 5 of the main widely-acknowledged reading strategies. Although the activity itself has a goal of enabling understanding of one text, the cumulative effect of doing several of these activities is

Jan 3010 min read

Reading Roles: The Philosopher Role and Answering Philosophical Questions About Texts

Reading Roles: The Philosopher Role and Answering Philosophical Questions About Texts

Reading Roles: The Philosopher Role and Answering Philosophical Questions About Texts

In my blog post Reading Roles: Teaching Metacognitive Reading Comprehension Strategies I mentioned the Philosopher role. Here's some more information about that Reading Role: Philosopher – thinking Asking and answering philosophical questions about a text allows children to engage further with what they have read. Doing this has the potential to improve comprehension for the same reasons as we have discussed under other Reading Roles: the deliberate act of thinking about wha

Jan 302 min read

Task Setting: Adopt, Adapt or Create?

Task Setting: Adopt, Adapt or Create?

Task Setting: Adopt, Adapt or Create?

When it comes to planning and resourcing lessons you have three broad options: Adopt Adapt Create I'd have loved to have shoehorned...

Teacher Development

Jan 283 min read

From SEND To Greater Depth: Taking Everyone On The Journey (And Getting Them All To The Destination)

From SEND To Greater Depth: Taking Everyone On The Journey (And Getting Them All To The Destination)

From SEND To Greater Depth: Taking Everyone On The Journey (And Getting Them All To The Destination)

Imagine your next unit of work as a journey into a city centre. In this post I'll use a journey into the centre of London because it was when working with a school there that I started to use this analogy. You want all your pupils to experience a visit to Buckingham Palace, so you plan a route on the tube. You plan the best route - its economical, its efficient, and, after checking the tube map for stops with wheelchair access, its accessible to all pupils. But you know there

Dec 10, 20245 min read

Reading Comprehension: Teaching a Metacognitive Approach to Inference-Making

Reading Comprehension: Teaching a Metacognitive Approach to Inference-Making

Reading Comprehension: Teaching a Metacognitive Approach to Inference-Making

Whilst searching for something else on my old blog I came across an old blog post by Clare Sealy , who is now the Head of Education Improvement, for the States of Guernsey. In it, she referred to a particular blog post I had shared and called it 'incredibly useful' and noted that it had ' set twitter mulling over ‘reading comprehension’ as a thing' . Well, those were the days! Now, teachers think a lot about reading comprehension, and that's a good thing. Now I can't guarant

Nov 26, 202410 min read

Teaching Reading: Boosting Background Knowledge To Aid Inference-Making

Teaching Reading: Boosting Background Knowledge To Aid Inference-Making

Teaching Reading: Boosting Background Knowledge To Aid Inference-Making

A few years ago, the author Tom Palmer sent me a copy of his latest book Wings: Typhoon. It's a great read aimed at 8 to 10 year olds and is a stereotype-breaking brew of the supernatural, football, fighter jets and the relationship between two sisters. But before I knew all of that I was intrigued to find that the covers of the book extend to contain a cut-out-and-make Typhoon aeroplane model. Is this a gimmick, or is there something more to it? One of the complaints about s

Nov 22, 20247 min read

Want Children To Read For Pleasure? Become a Reading Teacher (or Parent)

Want Children To Read For Pleasure? Become a Reading Teacher (or Parent)

Want Children To Read For Pleasure? Become a Reading Teacher (or Parent)

Uncover the secrets to sparking a love for reading in children. Become a reading teacher or parent.

Nov 19, 20248 min read

Case Study: Revolutionising Curriculum Delivery in KS2

Case Study: Revolutionising Curriculum Delivery in KS2

Case Study: Revolutionising Curriculum Delivery in KS2

Explore how a UK primary school transformed its KS2 curriculum delivery, emphasizing open-ended challenges, same-day interventions, and more

KS2 Continuous Provision

Nov 12, 20246 min read

SATs 2025: Answering 3-Mark Reading SATs Questions - An Update

SATs 2025: Answering 3-Mark Reading SATs Questions - An Update

SATs 2025: Answering 3-Mark Reading SATs Questions - An Update

Since I last wrote about helping children to answer 3-mark questions , the way those questions are asked has changed. Whilst much of the advice given in the previous blog post still stands (indeed I will be referring to it a lot in this one), it needs a little update. As part of this update, I have expanded the matching resource which can be downloaded here : Let's have a look at the 6 (2 per test) 3-mark questions from the 2022, 2023 and 2024 papers : 2024: 3-Mark Reading Qu

Nov 5, 20245 min read

Assessment: Why Should I Identify Children Working At Greater Depth In Foundation Subjects?

Assessment: Why Should I Identify Children Working At Greater Depth In Foundation Subjects?

Assessment: Why Should I Identify Children Working At Greater Depth In Foundation Subjects?

I recently wrote about how we might assess and identify children who are working at greater depth. Upon sharing the blog post , someone...

Oct 29, 20244 min read

bottom of page