Debs Richmond
@debsrichmond.bsky.social
Secondary science teacher • Biology specialism • 16 years' experience • ECF facilitator with local teaching hubs • ITT & ECT mentor • Former Head of Biology • Interested in pedagogy and T&L
Reposted by Debs Richmond
We're getting to that point when #ITT beginning #teachers start moving away from #planning as their lessons ramp up. This means it's time for a reminder that they may not be putting their efforts into the part of the lesson that really matters.
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2022/04/22/s...
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2022/04/22/s...
Setting the albatross free: Teaching without PowerPoint
Photo by Katerina Holmes on Pexels.com As a young teacher beginning my career just after the turn of the millennium, my first classroom was fitted with the ultimate in modern technology – a roller …
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog
February 7, 2026 at 9:53 AM
We're getting to that point when #ITT beginning #teachers start moving away from #planning as their lessons ramp up. This means it's time for a reminder that they may not be putting their efforts into the part of the lesson that really matters.
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2022/04/22/s...
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2022/04/22/s...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
🚨 Giveaway! 🎉 5 copies of my new book Questioning for Teaching & Learning. 💡 To enter repost this post! 🗓 Winners announced Monday 5th January 2026 at 6 pm UK time. Happy new year all. Here's to a healthy & happy 2026!
January 3, 2026 at 1:37 PM
🚨 Giveaway! 🎉 5 copies of my new book Questioning for Teaching & Learning. 💡 To enter repost this post! 🗓 Winners announced Monday 5th January 2026 at 6 pm UK time. Happy new year all. Here's to a healthy & happy 2026!
Reposted by Debs Richmond
New Post: ianfrosteducation.com/2026/01/01/t...
The practice of writing cards (saying thank you, better)
One of my former bosses would, every time he visited my school, make a clandestine card drop on my desk, which I’d discover only when he was driving off into the sunset. The card was simple, the ha…
ianfrosteducation.com
January 1, 2026 at 9:36 PM
New Post: ianfrosteducation.com/2026/01/01/t...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
I just wrote this for a project I am working on and it basically sums up the last 4 years of my life working in school improvement
December 30, 2025 at 9:09 AM
I just wrote this for a project I am working on and it basically sums up the last 4 years of my life working in school improvement
Reposted by Debs Richmond
‘The right colleague working alongside you is a delight. They add capacity, lighten the load, bring joy, create flow and make you feel anything is possible.’ - I love this @raesnape.bsky.social The Headteacher’s Handbook.
❓Who on your team does this?
❓Which leader do you do this for?
🧵5/n
❓Who on your team does this?
❓Which leader do you do this for?
🧵5/n
December 30, 2025 at 11:51 AM
‘The right colleague working alongside you is a delight. They add capacity, lighten the load, bring joy, create flow and make you feel anything is possible.’ - I love this @raesnape.bsky.social The Headteacher’s Handbook.
❓Who on your team does this?
❓Which leader do you do this for?
🧵5/n
❓Who on your team does this?
❓Which leader do you do this for?
🧵5/n
Reposted by Debs Richmond
Top ten names that would make a decent baby name if it wasn’t already the name of a medical condition or medication…
10. Amnesia
9. Rubella
8. Codeine
7. Malaria
6. Paxil
5. Alopecia
4. Bonjela
3. Aphasia
2. Typhus
1. Chlamydia
10. Amnesia
9. Rubella
8. Codeine
7. Malaria
6. Paxil
5. Alopecia
4. Bonjela
3. Aphasia
2. Typhus
1. Chlamydia
December 23, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Top ten names that would make a decent baby name if it wasn’t already the name of a medical condition or medication…
10. Amnesia
9. Rubella
8. Codeine
7. Malaria
6. Paxil
5. Alopecia
4. Bonjela
3. Aphasia
2. Typhus
1. Chlamydia
10. Amnesia
9. Rubella
8. Codeine
7. Malaria
6. Paxil
5. Alopecia
4. Bonjela
3. Aphasia
2. Typhus
1. Chlamydia
Reposted by Debs Richmond
I’ve written a long blog here that comes out of various things that I’ve worked on with other people this term. It’s about accents... again! Sorry, not sorry.
englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/pride-a...
englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/pride-a...
Survey of teachers and accents
EMC's Dan Clayton explores the implications of a survey looking at teachers and accents
englishandmedia.co.uk
December 18, 2025 at 11:00 AM
I’ve written a long blog here that comes out of various things that I’ve worked on with other people this term. It’s about accents... again! Sorry, not sorry.
englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/pride-a...
englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/pride-a...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
My @uonsoe.bsky.social #ITT #historyteacher s visited their new Teaching Practice schools today ahead of starting properly after the holiday. Enjoying hearing their reflections on moving placement & having a pupil perspective from my eldest who met one in their lesson today!
A shape-sorter understanding: Why mentees find changing teaching placements so hard
We’re approaching that time in the ITE year when our students prepare to move to a new school setting for their second teaching practice. Having just settled into their placement school, havi…
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog
December 17, 2025 at 6:12 PM
My @uonsoe.bsky.social #ITT #historyteacher s visited their new Teaching Practice schools today ahead of starting properly after the holiday. Enjoying hearing their reflections on moving placement & having a pupil perspective from my eldest who met one in their lesson today!
Reposted by Debs Richmond
New Blog Post 📝
Etymology in science usually stops at just photosynthesis, but I use it almost every single lesson.
Here are a few stories of some of my lessons and the impact teaching etymology has made on pupil understanding and literacy.
inquestion.co.uk/2025/11/28/e...
Etymology in science usually stops at just photosynthesis, but I use it almost every single lesson.
Here are a few stories of some of my lessons and the impact teaching etymology has made on pupil understanding and literacy.
inquestion.co.uk/2025/11/28/e...
Chlorine is Green, Zoos Have Life and Kings are Killed: Using Etymology in Science
It started with a happy accident. I had finished a lesson with my Year 8s and, surprisingly, we had powered through the material with 15 minutes to spare. My plan for the next lesson was to introdu…
inquestion.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 7:00 AM
New Blog Post 📝
Etymology in science usually stops at just photosynthesis, but I use it almost every single lesson.
Here are a few stories of some of my lessons and the impact teaching etymology has made on pupil understanding and literacy.
inquestion.co.uk/2025/11/28/e...
Etymology in science usually stops at just photosynthesis, but I use it almost every single lesson.
Here are a few stories of some of my lessons and the impact teaching etymology has made on pupil understanding and literacy.
inquestion.co.uk/2025/11/28/e...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
The @theeef.bsky.social has released updated guidance on Metacognition & self-regulated learning - one of its most widely used evidence resources.
Explore the update here: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-ev...
Explore the update here: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-ev...
Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning
Apply metacognitive strategies in the classroom.
educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk
November 13, 2025 at 9:48 AM
The @theeef.bsky.social has released updated guidance on Metacognition & self-regulated learning - one of its most widely used evidence resources.
Explore the update here: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-ev...
Explore the update here: educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-ev...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
When teachers thrive, students do too. Explore the blog on staff success and how to support your team 📘⬇️
https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/staff-success/
https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/staff-success/
November 13, 2025 at 9:08 AM
When teachers thrive, students do too. Explore the blog on staff success and how to support your team 📘⬇️
https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/staff-success/
https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/staff-success/
Reposted by Debs Richmond
Cracking blog here on one of my bugbears. The standard practice of expecting trainee teachers to plan *and* teach lessons is not a good way to train people. #Edusky
open.substack.com/pub/dremanue...
open.substack.com/pub/dremanue...
Lesson Planning Is Not the Basics: Why We’re Training Teachers Backwards
I’ve been teaching secondary school students for over a decade, and in that time, I’ve dived deep into many aspects of teaching.
open.substack.com
November 3, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Cracking blog here on one of my bugbears. The standard practice of expecting trainee teachers to plan *and* teach lessons is not a good way to train people. #Edusky
open.substack.com/pub/dremanue...
open.substack.com/pub/dremanue...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
🚨BIG day on the BLOG🚨
MY 100th POST‼️
Never thought I'd get to 10, let alone 100.😮
A new blog for #ITT #ECT #mentors #coaches on setting meaningful targets for their #mentees. Particularly helpful for #ITAP follow-up!
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/11/03/s...
#TeacherEducation
MY 100th POST‼️
Never thought I'd get to 10, let alone 100.😮
A new blog for #ITT #ECT #mentors #coaches on setting meaningful targets for their #mentees. Particularly helpful for #ITAP follow-up!
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/11/03/s...
#TeacherEducation
Setting granular targets for beginning teachers
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com Saima’s teaching practice placement is well underway, and she is getting used to the pattern of her teaching week and her regular mentor meetings. Things …
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog
November 3, 2025 at 1:01 PM
🚨BIG day on the BLOG🚨
MY 100th POST‼️
Never thought I'd get to 10, let alone 100.😮
A new blog for #ITT #ECT #mentors #coaches on setting meaningful targets for their #mentees. Particularly helpful for #ITAP follow-up!
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/11/03/s...
#TeacherEducation
MY 100th POST‼️
Never thought I'd get to 10, let alone 100.😮
A new blog for #ITT #ECT #mentors #coaches on setting meaningful targets for their #mentees. Particularly helpful for #ITAP follow-up!
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/11/03/s...
#TeacherEducation
How the teaching of adults varies from the teaching of children. More specifically the teaching of teachers i.e. teacher CPD. "... adults bring prior knowledge, seek relevance and want agency in their learning"
Most CPD fails to understand a teacher's context and it doesn't meet a teacher where they are in that moment in terms of knowledge or need.
A didagogy model fixes those problems.
This is the view of @samgibbs.bsky.social and Andrea Bean They explain why below.
www.tes.com/magazine/tea...
A didagogy model fixes those problems.
This is the view of @samgibbs.bsky.social and Andrea Bean They explain why below.
www.tes.com/magazine/tea...
Is ‘didagogy’ the key to better CPD for teachers?
The study of how teachers learn is unique enough to need its own terminology, finds a new report - and that has implications for how we understand teacher training and CPD
www.tes.com
October 22, 2025 at 7:54 AM
How the teaching of adults varies from the teaching of children. More specifically the teaching of teachers i.e. teacher CPD. "... adults bring prior knowledge, seek relevance and want agency in their learning"
Reposted by Debs Richmond
And another on the challenges some #ITT beginning teachers face when #TeacherTraining is not quite what they expected and they don't feel how they anticipated they would feel about their new endeavour...
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/r...
#TeacherEducation #EduBlogUK 2/2
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/r...
#TeacherEducation #EduBlogUK 2/2
Recalibrating Your Teacher Identity: When Your Past Success Doesn’t Fit Your Current Experience
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com I feel like a failure At some point every year I will have a conversation with a beginning teacher who confesses that they feel like a total failure. “…
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog
October 8, 2025 at 9:30 PM
And another on the challenges some #ITT beginning teachers face when #TeacherTraining is not quite what they expected and they don't feel how they anticipated they would feel about their new endeavour...
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/r...
#TeacherEducation #EduBlogUK 2/2
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/r...
#TeacherEducation #EduBlogUK 2/2
Reposted by Debs Richmond
I'm in a bit of a blog writing frenzy atm. Here are two new ones today for #TeacherMentor s working working with #ITT beginning teachers in this early phase of their #TeacherTraining year.
First up, Effective #Mentor Meetings: uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/u...
#EdublogUK 1/2
First up, Effective #Mentor Meetings: uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/u...
#EdublogUK 1/2
Unlocking the Power of Mentor Meetings for ITT Beginning Teachers
Photo by Los Muertos Crew on Pexels.com Mentor meetings are the cornerstone of support for beginning teachers, shaping their early experiences and helping them make sense of both the theory behind …
uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog
October 8, 2025 at 9:30 PM
I'm in a bit of a blog writing frenzy atm. Here are two new ones today for #TeacherMentor s working working with #ITT beginning teachers in this early phase of their #TeacherTraining year.
First up, Effective #Mentor Meetings: uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/u...
#EdublogUK 1/2
First up, Effective #Mentor Meetings: uonhistoryteachertraining.school.blog/2025/10/08/u...
#EdublogUK 1/2
Reposted by Debs Richmond
The government has swung the axe on teacher training incentives – including cutting funding for shortage subjects such as maths and foreign languages
schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-swings-a...
schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-swings-a...
October 7, 2025 at 10:22 AM
The government has swung the axe on teacher training incentives – including cutting funding for shortage subjects such as maths and foreign languages
schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-swings-a...
schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-swings-a...
"Having a mentor increased the likelihood of people accepting their accomplishments, being reassured that impostor feelings were normal and avoiding unrealistic comparison with others." From @mrenglishteach.bsky.social in @tesmagazine.bsky.social
"What is it that makes teachers so vulnerable to impostor syndrome? And what can schools do to help staff who might be struggling with it?" @mrenglishteach.bsky.social writes in @tesmagazine.bsky.social: www.tes.com/magazine/tea...
Why schools have an impostor syndrome problem
Evidence shows teachers are vulnerable to persistent feelings of inadequacy, and this can have wide-ranging negative effects for schools, finds Mark Roberts
www.tes.com
October 5, 2025 at 12:24 PM
"Having a mentor increased the likelihood of people accepting their accomplishments, being reassured that impostor feelings were normal and avoiding unrealistic comparison with others." From @mrenglishteach.bsky.social in @tesmagazine.bsky.social
This is interesting!
In many cases, crowding results in greater disease transmission. However, in monarch butterflies high host density can reduce per capita infection risk. This happens when caterpillars gobble up parasites on milkweed, removing them from the environment.🧪
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
Crowding reduces per-capita parasite infection risk in a butterfly host | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Crowding can result in greater disease transmission, yet crowded hosts may also remove
infectious propagules from the environment, thereby lowering the encounter rate and
infectious dose received by c...
royalsocietypublishing.org
September 29, 2025 at 8:27 AM
This is interesting!
Reposted by Debs Richmond
I'm reading again about psychological safety in the school environment. What is it and what are the misconceptions around having/developing psychological safety within a team? t.co/4HqxsnhNdM
https://samcrome.com/2025/05/16/resisting-mutation-how-to-prevent-psychological-safety-from-becoming-an-empty-buzzword-part-1/
t.co
September 9, 2025 at 4:35 PM
I'm reading again about psychological safety in the school environment. What is it and what are the misconceptions around having/developing psychological safety within a team? t.co/4HqxsnhNdM
"Just as bones grow stronger when stressed and the immune system matures through exposure to pathogens, so too do character, judgment, and resilience deepen when tested." Am important message from @markmccourt.bsky.social
September 21, 2025 at 8:56 AM
"Just as bones grow stronger when stressed and the immune system matures through exposure to pathogens, so too do character, judgment, and resilience deepen when tested." Am important message from @markmccourt.bsky.social
Reposted by Debs Richmond
Smartphones change children in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. Slowly, over time, their characters change. And it’s not for the better.
My latest blog details my pastoral experiences with smartphones in school.
bunsenblue.com/2025/09/04/w...
My latest blog details my pastoral experiences with smartphones in school.
bunsenblue.com/2025/09/04/w...
What Your Children Are Really Seeing in Group Chats
Being pastorally responsible for a group of 30 children as their form tutor is perhaps the greatest privilege and source of joy that teaching can bring. At one stage in my career, I became the form…
bunsenblue.com
September 14, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Smartphones change children in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. Slowly, over time, their characters change. And it’s not for the better.
My latest blog details my pastoral experiences with smartphones in school.
bunsenblue.com/2025/09/04/w...
My latest blog details my pastoral experiences with smartphones in school.
bunsenblue.com/2025/09/04/w...
Reposted by Debs Richmond
Building a culture of 100% participation
Every student working - every minute counting
open.substack.com
September 13, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Debs Richmond
📫 New Post
Recently, I've been posting about attention and decision-making as key aspects of leadership development. In this post, I discuss the role of institutional and interpersonal holding, and expertise in helping schools grow.
researcherteacher.home.blog/2025/09/14/l...
Recently, I've been posting about attention and decision-making as key aspects of leadership development. In this post, I discuss the role of institutional and interpersonal holding, and expertise in helping schools grow.
researcherteacher.home.blog/2025/09/14/l...
Holding, Trust, and Expertise
In schools, leadership isn’t just about making the right decisions, it’s about creating the right environment for others to thrive. We’ve all heard the phrase “set people up for success,” but…
researcherteacher.home.blog
September 14, 2025 at 6:12 AM
📫 New Post
Recently, I've been posting about attention and decision-making as key aspects of leadership development. In this post, I discuss the role of institutional and interpersonal holding, and expertise in helping schools grow.
researcherteacher.home.blog/2025/09/14/l...
Recently, I've been posting about attention and decision-making as key aspects of leadership development. In this post, I discuss the role of institutional and interpersonal holding, and expertise in helping schools grow.
researcherteacher.home.blog/2025/09/14/l...