Welcome to our Classroom Secrets blog!

The Christmas season is here so school is even busier than normal. It might be challenging to teach some regular lessons over the next few weeks so we’ve suggested some of our favourite activities for the children to do. (Don’t worry they will still be learning but the children might not think it!)

Ah, mistakes. They’re messy, aren’t they? You trip up, stumble, and sometimes feel like you’re fumbling in the dark. But here’s the thing: mistakes can actually be gold dust for learning—if we know how to use them.

Let’s start with this question: when was the last time you heard a child really talk? Not just answer with a “yes” or “no,” but express themselves—explain their ideas, ask questions, think aloud? That’s the magic of oracy, the skill of speaking and listening, and we need much more of it in our schools.

We started building a new website for Classroom Secrets in January 2021 (yep… long time ago). There were a few reasons we did this: We’d built our first website on Wordpress and that was great as a starting point, but it was struggling to handle a website with over 10,000 pages.

Hey, Ed here, co-founder and CEO, Classroom Secrets. My background is technology and I’m not a confident writer, so here’s some quick points I want to make about our new website that I believe will be useful for you to know.

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions affecting children and adults alike. It also flies under the radar a lot of the time, with a high rate of underdiagnosis (especially in girls/women).

In spring 2022, the UK government carried out the first wave of a survey into the working lives of teachers and leaders in state schools in England. 11,177 responses were given from the 505,633 teachers and leaders working at that point, with the report published in April 2023. The headlines from that were no surprise to those of us who have worked in a classroom over the last few years: In spring 2022, the UK government carried out the first wave of a survey into the working lives of teachers and leaders in state schools in England. 11,177 responses were given from the 505,633 teachers and leaders working at that point, with the report published in April 2023. The headlines from that were no surprise to those of us who have worked in a classroom over the last few years:

This World Mental Health Day is themed around mental health in the workplace, and with global child wellbeing statistics on a continued negative trend there has never been a greater need to protect the wellbeing of those they rely on to help them navigate childhood. The 2023 Wellbeing Index showed a clear picture that accumulative stress is critically affecting the education sector workforce with 95% of head teachers, and 78% of schoolteachers reporting feeling stressed, 36% reporting burnout and 51% of staff experiencing sleep difficulties and insomnia.

As Black History Month approaches this October, I know that many of us are reflecting on how to approach this topic in our classrooms. Teaching Black history requires care and depth, and we all want to make sure that we're covering it in the best way for our children to learn and be inspired.

It all started during a conversation like the ones we used to have in the staff room over a cup of tea. You know the kind—where you’re sharing your latest classroom struggles with a colleague who just gets it. We were talking about the never-ending challenge of teaching writing.

We hope by now you have heard about a few of our new maths resources – Maths in Minutes and Rapid Arithmetic – maybe you’ve even had opportunity to try our summer packs. Both are brand new resources which require no prep and give your children an opportunity to have short-burst maths practice.

When it comes to reading, fluency is the golden link between decoding and comprehension. First, the dry preamble… As with all things in teaching, fluency is a recent buzzword (as it has been before and will be again, inevitably). The (old) government report from March 2024 ‘Telling the Story’ English subject report highlighted how many schools are unsure how to move fluency forward, but that it is crucial in terms of developing comprehension.

The school year has ended, and summer is finally here! It’s time to kick back, relax, and recharge. But if you’re like many teachers, shifting from the hectic school pace to the laid-back summer vibe can feel a bit tricky.

The month of June sees the celebration of Pride. A 2022 NEU Children and adults of different faiths, communities, backgrounds and abilities are all unique and should be made to feel special and to be celebrated. This is one of many important awareness events which encourages conversations and raises awareness about our differences.

An EHCP or Education, Health and Care Plan is a legal document for a young person with a Special Educational Need or Disability (SEND). It covers the young person from 0 – 25 years old and is regularly reviewed.

April is Autism Acceptance month, and we hope you will find this blog useful in helping you to understand how you can support children on the autistic spectrum to thrive in your classroom.

World Book Day is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the joys of reading with young minds. However, the pressure of dressing up and the potential costs involved can sometimes overshadow the essence of the day.

The education sector is one of many professions that has been profoundly affected by the recent mental health crisis.

The festive season is a time for joy, connection, and celebration, but it can also be a time of financial strain. With the pressure to buy gifts, host parties, and indulge in festive treats, it's easy to see how holiday expenses can quickly add up.

The festive season is a time for joy, connection, and celebration, but it can also be a time of financial strain. With the pressure to buy gifts, host parties, and indulge in festive treats, it's easy for holiday expenses to quickly add up.

The festive season is often one of celebration, social engagements, and an opportunity for you to spend time with loved ones; however, this is not always the case. In 2022, nearly half of adults in the UK had at some point experienced a feeling of loneliness.

It's going home time today and we've to pack around 2 small children (and believe me, they come with SOOOO much stuff) and clean the caravan from top to bottom (it's a family member's holiday home).

I'm feeling bright as a button this morning despite the continued lack of sleep. The baby sleeps 12 midnight until 5:30am now and we pretend it’s sleeping through!

We’ve all been there, right? Here sits your new class, and within it there are one or maybe multiple pupils who have a diagnosis of Dyslexia, or are displaying dyslexic tendencies, and you just do not know how to narrow the gap in their progress against their peers.

Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the waterspout, Down came the rain and washed the spider out, Out came the sun and dried up all the rain, So Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the spout again.

When a good friend asked if I would like to write about wellbeing and give tips and ideas for teachers, I immediately said YES. It wasn’t until the next day that I started to panic. What did I know about wellbeing, that hadn’t already been written, said, or preached about?

19 years on and I still remember my first class – they were amazing! The kind of class you would have the hacksaws and glue guns out with on a Friday afternoon!

How can it be September already? It doesn’t seem too long ago that we were eating Easter eggs and wondering if we dare book a summer holiday somewhere other than our living rooms!

In 2012, the Early Years Foundation Stage ‘Bible’ was published. Development Matters was the non-statutory guidance aimed at supporting practitioners to implement the very statutory requirements of the EYFS.

We are delighted to announce that The Teachers’ Podcast has made the shortlist of Learning Ladders’ ‘Best Educational Podcast 2021’ awards.

Home learning has never been so widespread as it has been in 2020. Helping your child develop their learning at home may have brought tears of joy (or just tears!) but now is a good time to give yourself a pat on the back and acknowledge just how much of an impact encouraging learning at home can have. This is the case for all home learning, for all ages, but in this blog we are going to look in particular at developing early maths skills at home.

‘Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.’

So...where to begin? You don’t need me to tell you what a crazy old world we are currently living in. During these unprecedented times, we are all having to adapt to a new way of living and working.

Whilst the announcement made last night about UK school closures was not entirely unexpected, I think we all currently have more questions than answers over how the next few weeks are likely to pan out.

I don’t know about you, but for me, life feels quite unpredictable at the moment. Last time we published our news blog, we’d had a few uncertain months culminating with the election of a new Conservative government.

This Thursday (5th March 2020) people in over 100 countries will be celebrating World Book Day. For some of you, that will no doubt mean putting the finishing touches to the cardboard, paint and fabric masterpiece you’ve been preparing for weeks and will be wearing with pride on the big day (‘I’ve come as the Hydra because I’ve always loved Greek mythology.

Hopefully it won’t have escaped your attention that we’ve made a few changes recently. These include a new logo, brand colours, fonts and icons. The following paragraphs will explain to you why we felt compelled to make these changes.

Traditionally, Lent is a time for fasting and reflection, where it’s common for Christians to refrain from eating specific foods. This period of abstinence reflects the sacrifice Jesus made during his 40 day journey through the desert.

The hearts are up, the balloons are floating and the colour red is EVERYWHERE! Yep, it’s THAT time of year again when we, the general consumer, flood the pockets of companies by purchasing cards, chocolates, flowers and the like as a way of showing our affection.

Before starting here at Classroom Secrets, I worked for several years as part of a large team of teaching assistants at one of the largest schools in my area.

In recent years, I have seen a huge shift of teachers moving away from a traditional guided reading carousel, and instead moving towards a whole class approach. Both approaches can be underpinned by a specific scheme, but can also be planned using teachers’ own initiative and creativity.

I like to think of myself as a person who embraces diversity and the multicultural world within which we live. I’m a real sucker for talking to people and delving into their culture, exploring their traditions, values and beliefs.

Gavin Williamson’s new year speech After an uncertain few months, we face a new year with the knowledge that our education system will be in the hands of a Conservative government for the next few years at least.

A few months ago, two Classroom Secrets colleagues with no experience of Twitter’s teaching community (EduTwitter) embarked on a quest to see what joining it was like and what benefits it could bring.

As the season of Advent is finally upon us, it is now socially acceptable to play Christmas songs full blast for everyone to hear - without people thinking you’re Christmas obsessed!

This Friday 13th December is going to be a busy one. As the nation holds a collective breath whilst awaiting the outcome of the general election, children and teachers across the country will be arriving at school clad in wonderfully bright, garish (and possibly musical) Christmas jumpers.

How Christmas Are You? (and which of Santa’s lists will you be on?) Season's greetings one and all!

In trying to work out what’s been happening in education in the UK this month, it seems like the answer is ‘not very much’ as, unsurprisingly, everybody’s focus is on the upcoming election.

Sitting in London’s Pride, a pub in Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport, I looked over to my boyfriend, Luke, and said, “Are you okay?” Hunched over his pint, it was clear he was not okay. Leg twitching, and visibly uncomfortable, he mumbled back, “I’ll be alright once I’m on that plane.’ At the time, Luke was a nervous flyer, but this was a different kind of nervous and it was one I shared. We were both thinking the same thing – are we making the right decision moving to Thailand?

Would you rather… Have a snack area or a sand tray?! In an ideal world we’d have it all, wouldn’t we? A spacious EYFS classroom with natural light, windows at a level children could actually see from, displays at a height children could access – maybe even interact with! Aah, the little pleasures in the life of an EYFS practitioner!

When I taught in a school with 100% of children having English as an additional language, I taught one child who had moved a lot around Europe.

Yes. For anybody who really doesn’t like Christmas, this time of year can be particularly difficult. Fortunately, the school I taught in for many years had a predominantly Muslim intake, so we never went completely over the top.

One of my favourite pastimes as a child was to listen to my ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ cassette tape. I loved creating actions for the rhymes and performing for my parents. You get a great sense of achievement learning songs and rhymes by heart.

This year’s Anti-Bullying Week campaign focuses on ‘Change Starts with Us’ and how right they are. In today’s world of fast moving (and sometimes anonymous) communication and with a growing desire to be the centre of attention and/or approved by the masses, standing up to the less favourable amongst us and empowering people with the right amount of self-confidence has never been more important.

As we begin the descent to the end of the autumn term, an elephant stands firmly in the corner of the educational room. Another general election.

This week (4th – 8th November) is International Stress Awareness Week. Up until 2018, there was just a day rather than a week, and perhaps the extension reflects the growing problem of stress in our working lives.

Ed And Claire Riley Of The Classroom Secrets Foundation A newly-formed Halifax-based non-profit is providing free educational resources for schools and teachers across Calderdale.

This was the opinion of 81% of UK teachers who took part in Global Outdoor Classroom Day in 2018 as reported by Project Dirt working with Learning through Landscapes.

With the territory of teaching comes the wonderful world of observations, and subsequently, the feedback from them. During my time in the classroom, I have had some outstanding observations, and some so disastrous that I can’t even think about them without cringing.

For many of us, me included, Autumn is a magical time of year. Our vibrant green landscape transforms to wonderfully warm oranges and reds; the cool wind makes us grab for those thick woollies and the smell of burning wood and spices linger in the air.

When I was 22 years old, I had been a Muay Thai boxer (even getting to spend time in Thailand on this), I had just finished my degree, I enjoyed regular nights out with friends and I had just moved out to Portugal to work in bars and youth hostels.

Teaching about Black History Month in schools is incredibly important and something that many schools are already creating brilliant work around, but it is definitely something that we should be shouting about more.

Halifax-based educational resource provider Classroom Secrets has been awarded a prestigious accolade by national employment accreditors Investors in People.

There are 71 days left of term. Five of those will be half term, twenty more are Saturdays and Sundays, which means there are 46 days left, which basically means it’s nearly Christmas! Don’t worry, I’m not going to start talking tinsel and baubles (yet) but just to forewarn you, there is a large contingency of Christmas Superfans here at Classroom Secrets!

World Teachers’ Day 2019 - Young Teachers: The future of the Profession Saturday October 5th is World Teachers’ Day.

Six Activities for National Poetry Day National Poetry Day 2019 takes place this Thursday, and it presents a fantastic opportunity for teachers and pupils to get stuck into poems of all styles, shapes and sizes.

When I think back over my career as a primary school teacher and wonder about the legacy I left behind, it’s not that my children had a sound grasp of fronted adverbials, nor that they could recognise an expanded noun phrase.

“Good morning, Ellan. Do you speak any German? I have a day covering GCSE German lessons and no one else available.”

If you are reading this article, then you have probably just spent, or are in the process of spending, six months, maybe a year, or perhaps even longer (you lucky thing) at home with your marvellous bundle of joy. However, in no time at all, the requirement to return to work will loom large and forbidding on the horizon.

We’re well known for our Maths resources but did you know we also do Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling? Read on to find out what’s available and how our resources will help your children learn and save you time.

This Friday (13th September 2019), people across the world will be celebrating the life and work of Roald Dahl.

As I sit and type this, I am only two days into my return to work from a blissfully relaxing and sunny holiday that involved mountains of cheese and gallons of wine. I am also two days into the return to school for my two teenage daughters. I am already in a whirlwind.

We all know how this feels, particularly at this time of year when our thoughts turn to the first few days back at school. My friend tells a story about his first job as an NQT…

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career.

I’m stood in front of 30 young, eager and expectant faces. I imagine that the majority of them got out of bed rather reluctantly this morning, after being forced by jubilant parents to get dressed, eat breakfast and get out of the house after 6 long weeks at home. Yet somehow, the majority of them still appear quite pleased to be here.

Setting New Year’s resolutions for the first of January is widely accepted as the norm, whether or not we stick to them. But for teachers, ‘New Year’ comes around not once, but twice a year.

With September approaching, a discussion arose here at Classroom Secrets about the first week of a new school year, and the sorts of activities teaching staff use to ease themselves and their pupils back into the patterns of school life.

A Halifax-based firm has been announced as a winner in the regional stage of the Barclays Entrepreneurs Awards, winning the Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Here at Classroom Secrets, we’ve always differentiated our resources so that you have a choice of varying difficulty to give to your pupils. We know the realities of working in a classroom and how difficult it can be to find resources which are already differentiated but are the same activity!

Halifax based educational resource provider, Classroom Secrets, are set to further expand their services to teachers with the launch of The Teachers’ Podcast.

Hope you've finally made it to the holidays! I’m not going to tell to you about resources, that can wait at least four weeks while you have a break, I’m going to tell you about my new podcast instead.

Classroom Secrets and Grammarsaurus will finally cross paths tonight as me and Ed are travelling down to meet Mitch Hudson. Mitch will be on the first episode of my brand new podcast which is going live on Thursday.

It's all steam ahead here at Classroom Secrets. On Monday we took the production team on a working walk to develop some amazing ideas to help you on your teaching journey. I also interviewed my first two guests for the podcast! Here's a photo of Lee and Kayla helping me out in the test run.

Earlier this month, our MD, Claire Riley, spoke with the Halifax Evening Courier.

This past week I’ve been learning all about podcasts and I’m excited to announce that I’ll be launching one soon. If you want to see the artwork samples I’ve been sent for the thumbnail, I put them on Facebook to see what everyone thought of them.

Happy Father's Day. Hope you get to spend it with the people you choose to.

North of England based educational resource provider, Classroom Secrets, are addressing the issue of life/work balance with early years and foundation stage teachers by providing a set of free resources to aid in the classroom.

Have you heard? We’ve released the first of our EYFS resources. We've had quite a lot of requests for them recently so the team put their heads together to see what they could come up with.

We're at the caravan this weekend again in Bridlington as we bought my dad a train driver experience for his birthday. It was a super day!

Today (7 June 2019) we’ve launched our new EYFS resources and we couldn’t be more excited!

I‘m writing to you from my sun lounger in Lanzarote. This is this last year we can make the most of holidaying outside of term time.

Hope you've been winding down over the bank holiday, even if you are spending some of the break report writing.

Did you know that we now have 127 discussion problem resources online? If you haven't been using them as part of your normal lessons, they would be great to bring to your students cold as a recap and to test their knowledge.

Help! All my lot have got the lurgy. I'm the only non-lurgified person in the household. Wish me luck - I've had to cancel my plans (to go shopping for myself the first time since having a baby - always the way) and now I've such a fun day ahead.

Are you having a good bank holiday weekend? I hope you've had chance to do something exciting this weekend.

I'm cheating this week and writing your email the night before as it's our eldest's 3rd birthday and we're unwrapping presents (feels weird writing this into the future). And yes, the diligent ones among you will have realised that she very helpfully came 5 weeks early, the day after the website's birthday.

I started writing this email to you yesterday on the way home from a four day holiday on the east coast. As things go with a baby and a toddler, I didn't get chance to finish it!

Are you finally on your Easter holidays? Do you have any nice trips away planned? We're off to the seaside for a few days with the young 'uns so hopefully the weather will be nice. Then when we get back we have a crazy two weeks of birthdays and business trips.

It's Mother's Day so I'm late sending the email today. I'd like to say it was because I got an amazing lie in, but let's be honest, it was down to the fact that the clocks went forward so the children had a fake 'sleep in' and it all seems to have gone downhill from there.

Well that was a jam-packed 48 hours!

Well, I've had a pretty good weekend so far! I always work Friday mornings so off I went nice and early as I had some things to get done before a meeting that had been booked in for me at 11.

I'm going it alone this morning. Ed is at a conference so it's me and the kids. I'm up early to get this email sent! #whereismybackup

I'm off to a christening today and I get to be Godmother! Time to get the iron out for the girls' dresses (it comes out like, once a year).

How is it only February?!

So I'm sat here with my heart in my mouth and tears in my eyes. We published our #LIFEworkbalance survey late last night (not very LIFE/work balance, I know, but Ed and I wanted to get it done for you guys). I've just put a post on social media about it and the responses have started trickling through already.

What a busy week it was! (See what I did there? )

Yesterday I had a bit of a video rant on Facebook!

I've spent most of my week creating induction videos for tomorrow. In fact, I've made two and a half HOURS worth! ????‍ Claire and Fay are joining the production team in the morning and we've gone all out to improve the induction process this time around!

It's January and I'm thinking about the year ahead! I've been doing a live on my Facebook page almost every day and now I'm thinking ahead to holidays this year. Are you the same?

It's been a productive week at Classroom Secrets!

We had an epic night at our Christmas party last night and we presented the Colleague Awards 2018. It was honestly so nice to see all the lovely things that people had written about each other when voting and we shared them on the big screen. We upgraded from last year's cheap plastic trophies too!

It's almost New Year! I love New Year! Not for the seeing it in - with a baby and a toddler we'll be off to bed before Big Ben does his thing in the hopes of catching enough sleep - but for the fact that it's a fresh start.

It’s been a interesting week in the Riley household - we’ve all had the sickness bug. We usually have a Christmas party at our house and we had to cancel it yesterday. Unfortunately, I still had to cook the food I’d planned because I’d taken the meat out of the freezer. We'll be eating curry and chilli for weeks!

Things are winding down here at Classroom Secrets. We're having our break now so that we can hit the ground running for you in January.

There's never a dull week at Classroom Secrets and this week Ed and I signed on a second office in the town centre so we'll now run from two sites. This is because we have outgrown the office we moved into in May so quickly!

We are hurtling towards Christmas! A few of us were at a Christmas fair yesterday that Jill organised and we took the girls to see Santa there. Our 2.5 year old was terrified (let's call it a rehearsal) and our baby wasn't fussed. I'm sure all the firsts are like this... haha!

My children must have learned about the 'weekend' concept as they slept in until 8am! Still feel like I'm owed 100 hours sleep though. It's like the morning you get up to go to school after a holiday (with let's face it, little or no sleep anyway) and you think, "Oh no! I should have spent more time sleeping - it's 8 WEEKS until I can catch up again!"

Definitely slept through my 5am alarm and got woken up by the supermarket delivery man knocking on the door at 6:15am. Oops! There are just not enough hours in the day to sleep! So you've him to thank for this email being sent out on time!

This week we've put 70 resources online!!!!!! We were getting behind so we've had a massive push on production and as a result, the proofreading team have done overtime this week.

I attempted a lie in this morning with the clocks going back but what I actually ended up with was feeding a baby an hour earlier and then a toddler jumping on my head while I pretended that going back to sleep could be a thing. The hilarious part? Said toddler is currently sat right next to me and has just announced that she is 'tired'...?!?!?!

Despite having a 2 year old, this is our first experience of a young baby with a cold... sleeping through is no longer a thing and double vomit all over our duvet is. Bleurgh.

It's getting harder to get out of bed in a morning. I don't even think it's that cold as the weather has been pretty mild over the last few days but it just feels like it's going to be cold outside of the covers and also it's darker.

I've had quite an exciting weekend! Have you?

I'm here in the office super early this morning. Yesterday we had an assessment day to recruit some more amazing team members and I left my laptop here! So here I am at 6:15am on a Sunday morning.

The baby is sleeping through!!!!! Since we've been back from holiday, the earliest we've been awoken is 5am and generally she sleeps until 6am! Woohoo!