Been going to your blog since I discovered it around 2011-2012! It occurs to me I have never properly acknowledged that so thank you Steve for all you do with the site, learnt a lot from it especially in the early days and over the years.

Agree but hope it changes here. Facebook groups seems like the best method. LinkedIn is a jungle i haven't conquered yet. Threads just feels like one network too many Trying to be part of solution. Education voices on X are fewer and further between. Mainly keep it for football transfer windows...

My old department used it as an end of y9 walk away with sonething qualification. Probably not the intended. I think any alternative to gcse probably needs to lean towards the practical and immediately deployable once abroad over a topic based approach.

Really enjoyed reading this. I hope-as you say- the quick win of sorting out grading is taken. An alternative qualification would be a good step although having experienced fcse, entry level and asset languages, i'm not sure this nut has quite been cracked yet! Music grades approach could work.

Culture slide after starter and before main part of lesson. Some facts about each country or festivals. "Yipao" (Colombia), Carnival de Oruro and día de amistad (Bolivia) always well-received. Use listenings with South American pronunciation (this is language and voki used to be good for it)

Heard of schools doing ir but can't recall mfl teacher speaking about it positively. Has Steve ever blogged about it? Can see benefits for PE+tech. If facing it, I would approach as 2 lessons maybe even with 2 different seating plans to retain attention. Good for KS4 exam practice but KS3 tough

Couple of thoughts
- any evening classes locally?
- find a-level spec and textbooks that exist
-get an online person you can talk with who is learning English 30mins each
- try to incorporate structures from the a-level in those conversations
- could be helpful: www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Germa...

Also useful for SLT links managing those dpeartments #Edusky #UKEd