✨ Take what you need this week!

Welcome to your weekly POWER Up! I’m here to support you with simple, actionable strategies, ideas, resources and freebies!

P = Personal 💁🏼‍♀️

Oooft. I shared a pretty vulnerable post last Saturday all the stuff that sits underneath the wins. The 2am maths about the new house. The anxiety that got a whole lot louder once I became a mum. Catching myself bribing a two year old like it's a hostage situation when I KNOW better.

Sharing those is always a bit scary! But the comments and DMs that came back were so lovely, and I'm really glad people could relate.
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[You can read the whole thing here.]

O = On the 'gram 📲

In case you missed it, here's what else has been popular over on Instagram lately.

• ​Things I've learned about cognitive load that you can pinch​
• ​Reading strategies that LOOK helpful... but aren't *
• ​Things I thought I needed for my classroom (I didn't!)​
• ​People only post their wins on Instagram - here's what you don't see​
• ​Things I thought would fix behaviour... that made it worse!​
• ​10 seconds - that's the whole strategy...​

*Includes freebies

W = What's trending?📈

I posted last week about being done with toxic positivity in education, and it clearly struck a chord.

Here's what I keep coming back to. When a teacher says they're exhausted, almost every response is about them. Fill your cup. Practise gratitude. Remember your why.

But NOBODY asks what's on your plate that shouldn't be there in the first place.

And "resilience" has kind of turned into code for absorb more. Be resilient about the class sizes. About the reporting deadline in week 8. About the five extra things added this term with nothing taken off.

I'm not anti-positivity, I think teaching is the best job in the world. But advice that only works for the teacher who already has spare time and energy just lands as one more thing they're failing at.

Which is exactly what I'm here for. Building the systems that actually take things off your plate, so the job gets lighter and you get to enjoy it again.

E = Education Tip 💡

For years, I confused "engaging" with "effective."

So here are the lesson habits I was sure were lazy, right up until my students started learning more:

1. Teaching one new thing at a time.
2. Keeping the same slide and worksheet layout across a whole unit, so their energy goes on the maths and not on finding their way around the page.
3. Making my slides plainer, not prettier.
4. Showing a worked example instead of explaining it out loud.
5. Repeating instead of always adding something new. Repetition is how something moves from effortful to automatic.
6. When the format is new, keep the content easy. When the content is new, keep the format familiar.

Pick one and try it for a couple of weeks. Number 3 is the easiest quick win. :-)

R = Resource Spotlight 🔦

Our maths anchor charts recently landed in the Freebee Library. 20 one-page charts covering place value, fractions, angles, measurement conversions, CUBES and more, each one breaking a concept into a plain explanation, a worked example and a visual.

The whole point is that the kid who's stuck has somewhere to look that isn't you. And yes, they're completely free… for now!!

➜ Grab the maths anchor charts here.​

Oh and top tip - print four to a page OR add them to a ring clip to make an easy reference tool for your students!

Have a wonderful rest of the week, and if you only try one thing off that list, make it the plainer slides!

Love,

Tam

P.S. That anchor chart pack is going to keep growing. If there's a concept your kids keep getting stuck on, hit reply and tell me. That's honestly how our resources get made - your feedback and requests!

P.P.S. We're making oodles of exciting updates in The Hive over the next week or so. Come and check it out anytime with a 14 day free trial!