Welcome to our Classroom Secrets blog!

This week the Children’s Commissioner (Dame Rachel de Souza) published The Children’s Plan: The School Census 2025. It is the first national survey undertaken by this office to ask every school and college what children really need to thrive.

Welcome to the final blog in our graphic organisers series! This time, we’re diving into spider diagrams, a versatile tool that helps students visually map out ideas and key concepts. Whether for planning writing, structuring information, or fostering critical thinking, spider diagrams are a simple yet powerful tool for boosting learning across subjects.

Ofsted’s updated School Inspection Toolkit, released on 9th September 2025, brings major changes to how schools are inspected and judged. With a new grading scale across six key areas plus safeguarding, this framework gives schools clearer guidance on what inspectors are really looking for. From curriculum design and inclusion to leadership and wellbeing, this comprehensive guide breaks down exactly what teachers and school leaders need to know — and how to prepare effectively for a successful inspection under the new system.

Chris explains how the Frayer model can deepen pupils’ understanding of key concepts through structured vocabulary development. This versatile graphic organiser is perfect for use across the curriculum and supports critical thinking, oracy, and retrieval practice.

As part of our series on graphic organisers, Chris explores Carroll diagrams—a simple but powerful tool that helps pupils sort and compare information using clear yes/no choices.

Chris tells us about how Venn diagrams, one of the most familiar graphic organisers, can be used to strengthen retrieval practice and help pupils make meaningful comparisons.

Graphic organisers are a brilliant way to help children make sense of how different pieces of information connect together — you’ve probably used a concept map within a lesson at some point but there’s a whole world of graphic organisers beyond concept maps waiting to be explored. In this series of blogs, we’ll dive into five different types of graphic organisers and how they can slot seamlessly into your classroom practice. We’ve even thrown in handy links to downloadable versions to save you precious planning time!

As teachers, we’ve all experienced that moment when a lesson seems to be going well—clear explanations, lively pace, lots of content—only to realise some pupils look overwhelmed, distracted or are simply not learning what your short-term lesson plan dictates they must know by the end of the lesson. It’s not always a question of effort or attention; sometimes, it’s just too much information at once. That’s where cognitive load theory comes in.

The benefits of Circle Time in EYFS are huge. For one thing, it is a really brilliant way to get to know your class or group. Circle time games also provide great opportunities for developing social skills as well as improving listening and attention skills, gross motor skills, cognitive development, community building, and encouraging emotional intelligence.

Our brand-new times tables resources are launching onto the Classroom Secrets website this August, ready in time for the new school year. They will be asking pupils to ‘Reach for the Stars’ and aim high with their times tables recall.

Whether you are moving into a new classroom or simply just fancy a change, something that we always think about is how to lay out your classroom (and who sits next to who!). I’ve asked our teachers at Classroom Secrets and in our Facebook groups what works for them. Here’s some things to consider!

As educators, we all know the blank page can be utterly terrifying for children and this framework truly validates that feeling as it highlights just how challenging learning to write really is.

As we approach the end of the academic year, many primary school pupils are preparing to move into new year groups—and for some, into entirely new schools. For many children, this time brings a mix of emotions: excitement, nervousness, and sometimes, deep anxiety.

It’s nearly the end of the school year – that magical time of year when the regular timetable slowly erodes due to the pressures of Sports Day, transition sessions, leavers’ assemblies and the like, suddenly giving you and your class little pockets of free time here and there. However, if your go-to in these situations is Hangman, even the most eager child in your class might be a little bored of it after the third fifteen-minute session of it in the same week.

Do you remember what the capital of Mali is from our previous blog about retrieval practice?  There could be all sorts of factors that affected your ability to remember this knowledge – maybe it’s been a few days since you read that blog, or something major could have happened to you since then, or you have been busy with paperwork, or you simply haven’t had the chance to actively use that knowledge in context?

Up and down the country every morning and every evening battles are happening. Parents are counting down from three and wondering what they will actually do if they get to zero. Others are begging and pleading and some will be threatening to take toys away. All of this because of the dreaded tooth brush. Let’s face it most children are just not really fans of having their teeth brushed.

Since last September, we have really invested in research and finding out what will best support teachers and children in your class.   Our content specialists study the curriculum, education and subject research and speak to teachers just like you to develop new overviews and resources.

How exciting! Your child is due to start Reception in September. You may be experiencing quite a few emotions about this and that is completely normal.  To help you prepare...

These have been specially created as a new resource line for Years 1 to 6 to provide you with easy-to-use morning work all in one place, taking elements from our most popular resources and streamlining them all into one place to be as accessible as possible. Each week is a separate file, designed to be opened and used as daily morning work for that week.

For some children this might just be their favourite event of the year! For others, it’s just another day, playing with their friends but maybe with a bit more exercise than normal. And for some, Sports Day will be tough. Really tough. Let’s be honest, for a lot of teachers, this day is pretty tough too.

Are you familiar with retrieval practice? It’s been discussed in educational circles for the last few years, with consideration of how to use it within learning to improve outcomes for pupils. It’s cited in the Ofsted inspection framework overview of research as being “important practice for effective retention of knowledge” and inspectors may look for evidence of it during an inspection. It’s been the subject of many staff meetings in schools. But what is it, and how can you use it to help your pupils remember key learning?

The Department for Education (DfE) has recently published a new policy paper outlining expectations for how schools and teachers should approach the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education settings. The new guidance comes in the form a policy paper published here. This is an important step in clarifying how AI tools can be used responsibly and safely in schools.

Yes, that’s right, the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is almost here, and right with a half term break just before it. Excellent! So, what’s on your mind the most? Are you thinking, what will the pass score be? Will my cohort be able to master the split digraphs? What more can I do for those children who are struggling to blend?

National Fieldwork Fortnight runs from the 3rd June to 15th June. If you knew that, gold star! If you didn’t, I think that’s ok. It’s summer term, SATs are done, report writing is done/in full-swing/looming and you’ve enough to think about.