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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.
Assessment: How Can I Identify Greater Depth Children In Foundation Subjects?
Uncover the complexities of identifying greater depth children with an insightful assessment that goes beyond traditional methods.
Aidan Severs
Oct 15, 20245 min read
Case Study: Continuous Provision and EYFS-Inspired Practice in KS2
Bringing an early years approach into KS1 isn’t unheard of – there are plenty of Year 1 classrooms where continuous provision has been...
Aidan Severs
Oct 8, 20246 min read
Developing A Greater Depth Toolkit To Aid Task Design
Having written a few blog posts over the years about working with pupils of greater depth , I occasionally get requests to work with...
Aidan Severs
Oct 1, 20246 min read
Featured Article: 8 Classroom Routines for Teachers to Nail Before Half-Term
I wrote this quite a while ago (back when I tweeted as @thatboycanteach and when I was beginning my deputy headship at an 'RI' school)...
Aidan Severs
Sep 2, 20241 min read
The Best RE Lesson I Ever Taught (Spoiler: It Was A Reading Lesson)
It was the last day of half term: business as usual. I always started the day off with a reading 'session' (somehow can't bring myself to call it a lesson) and that Friday was no exception. Continuing with our reading of Sandi Toksvig's 'Hitler's Canary' and with a focus on linking non-fiction with fiction, I had prepared a text about Judaism. The strategy focus that lesson was scanning the text for answers. The children underlined what they thought would be key words in the
Aidan Severs
Jul 23, 20244 min read
Why Should Teachers Complete Tasks Before Pupils Do?
One of the things I advocate for when training teachers on planning is that teachers should have a go at the work they are going to be...
Aidan Severs
Jul 16, 20243 min read
How To Teach Spelling In Primary Schools
A couple of years ago I worked with a primary school to help them develop their teaching of spelling. The process of preparing and...
Aidan Severs
Jun 13, 20241 min read
Primary D&T: Is It OK To Design Without Making And Vice Versa?
Does a D&T unit always need to feature both designing and making? Find out in this blog post...
Aidan Severs
Jun 10, 20243 min read
Can Codifying Teaching Really Improve Teachers?
Can we really codify teaching, simplifying it into a set of easy-to-follow steps? Is it possible to see a video, a diagram or read about...
Aidan Severs
Jun 4, 20244 min read
The 4 Ps Of The Design & Technology Curriculum
Discover how to revolutionize your design technology curriculum with the 4 Ps approach and learn to teach DT effectively.
Aidan Severs
May 28, 20243 min read
Curriculum: What Is The Best Kind Of 'Big Question'?
Unlock the secret to crafting the perfect 'Big Question Curriculum' with the ultimate guide. Learn the best question types and their impact.
Aidan Severs
May 21, 20245 min read
How To Write Good Curriculum Statements (And Why I'm Not Calling Them Objectives)
Learn how to craft effective curriculum statements and why they are more than just objectives.
Aidan Severs
May 13, 20244 min read
Misguided Reading (6 Questions To Ask When Planning A Reading 'Lesson')
How should we teach reading? What do we even mean by 'reading'? Decoding? Comprehension? Both? Is it more than that? Scarborough's Reading Rope, as shared by the EEF on X (https://x.com/EducEndowFoundn/status/1235657088430493697?s=20) Scarborough's Reading Rope breaks things down a little more and, if nothing else, serves to show that there is quite a lot going on when one picks up a book to read. If the above 8 headings (background knowledge; vocabulary; language structures
Aidan Severs
Mar 19, 20246 min read
Backwards Planning: What I Got Wrong
Here's the resource that this blog post refers to - you can download it for free below: In the old iteration of the above planning framework, I had the following prompts in the very last step (step 5): Who are the children who will need extra learning steps prior to the ones outlined above? Who are the children who will need extra learning steps following the ones outlined above (NSFD)? In all my recent work around providing for pupils with SEND I have realised how mistaken
Aidan Severs
Feb 20, 20242 min read
Featured Article: Interleaving: What Is It And How Can It Improve Memory And Learning In The Maths Classroom?
Here's an article I wrote for Third Space Learning about interleaving. It was fascinating to read the research on this strategy and to...
Aidan Severs
Feb 19, 20241 min read
A SEND-First Approach... To Everything
Imagine a world where children with SEND really were the priority. What would that look like and what would the impact be on all...
Aidan Severs
Feb 6, 20243 min read
SEND Provision Across The Curriculum: Start and End Points
“All pupils should have access to a broad and balanced curriculum . The National Curriculum Inclusion Statement states that teachers should set high expectations for every pupil , whatever their prior attainment. .. In many cases, such planning will mean that pupils with SEN and disabilities will be able to study the full national curriculum. ” - 6.12, The SEND Code of Practice "Schools should know precisely where children and young people with SEN are in their learning a
Aidan Severs
Jan 30, 20246 min read
Subject Leadership and Support for Pupils With SEND
Subject leadership can be a minefield at the best of times, and for many teachers and leaders looking at it through the SEND lens is potentially even more difficult. This blog post contains a number of starting points for subject leaders who want to improve teaching and learning opportunities in their subject for pupils with SEND. Each of these should be engaged with critically, with leaders thinking not of children with specific conditions or diagnoses, but thinking of those
Aidan Severs
Jan 26, 20243 min read
Provision for Pupils with SEND = Provision for All?
If you read articles or listen to podcasts about SEND you'll hear one phrase more often than others: "What works for pupils with SEND...
Aidan Severs
Jan 25, 20244 min read
5 Ways To Help Children To Access The KS2 Reading SATs
Not many year 6 teachers want to spend months going through past papers, and indeed, many past papers now don't match the rigour and complexity of the more recent tests. There's also a growing (and welcome) trend of moving away from reading lessons being death by comprehension questions which require a written answer and are organised by the SATs reading domains. But, it's never a bad idea to help children to feel like the tests are familiar, and there are some things about t
Aidan Severs
Jan 5, 20243 min read
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