Jonathan Mountstevens
Deputy Head, History Teacher and Chartered Teacher Programme Lead. Mostly here to discuss curriculum, assessment, school leadership and history. Views my own.
Blog: https://occamshairdryer.wordpress.com
- Who are these senior leaders who have time to be reading everyone’s emails?
- Reposted by Jonathan MountstevensI saw today a student-facing behaviour policy that lists as one of its reasons for immediate removal from class “Public refusal to follow rules” and I think this is rather good - that it encapsulates (far better than “low level disruption”) the main reason for sanctions in schools🧵#UkEd #EduSky
- Lizardman Constant?
- Reposted by Jonathan Mountstevens1. Been thinking about this more overnight. Years back I worked at a school where the MAT told us to reduce suspensions by "finding other strategies." They gave no guidance on what these should be. They sort of "challenged" us to find them. I'm sure the aim was noble but it was bad..
- Thoughts on this mess. 🧵👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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- Have spent the last two weeks doing jury service. Glad to have done it but hope I never have to again. Amount of wasted time means I will think twice before ever saying anything in schools is inefficient or frustrating again. On the plus side I’m much better prepared for Ark Soane than last year!
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- Reposted by Jonathan MountstevensThoughts on this mess. 🧵👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- I am with a group of people who seem nice but have started to talk about all the life skills schools ought to teach but don’t. Please send help urgently.
- I totally get the concerns about what students who are suspended do during that time, but schools don’t have capacity for this. If ministers are worried, why not provide resources for suspended students to be supervised out of school, not put more burden on leaders? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- Fascinating piece and the point about memory alone being insufficient is crucial. Also v strongly agree that this isn’t something that schools can fix on their own. I teach my students all the things listed here but I wouldn’t bet they’ll all remember them in the future. That’s not how memory works.
- "On Holocaust Memorial Day we need more history, not just more memory" bit.ly/4t6wPx6 Dr Andy Pearce, Director of @uclholocaust.bsky.social, writes today on the RHS blog. #Skystorians
- DfE: Schools should be mobile phone- free environments. Also DfE: We’d like students to have an education records app and they’ll need to bring their phones into school to get it set up.
- She, too, pursues her ends, Brutal as the stars of this month, Her pale head heavy as metal.
- Having reached the bit in @cjfaraday.bsky.social’s book about Richard Walweyn and his prosecution for wearing ‘a very monsterous and outraygous greate payre of hose’ in 1565, I now have a desperate desire to build an inquiry around these inappropriate trousers.
- Lost track of the number of time I've corrected kids in the classroom who've said that without the Battle of Britain or whatever 'we'd all be speaking German'. But no, I was wrong. It's official.
- Reposted by Jonathan Mountstevens*** NEW POST *** Quality assurance often creates workload without clarity. In my latest Substack, I explore why common QA approaches fall short and how schools can design QA that is purposeful, subject-led and genuinely improves teaching. open.substack.com/pub/enserm/p...
- Pleased to see this feature in latest TH. The textbook’s insistence on using ‘High Stalinism’ to describe 1945-53 when that conflicts with scholarship I’m getting them to read elsewhere has irritated me for ages.
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- Reposted by Jonathan Mountstevens*** NEW POST *** Is the curriculum turn turning back again? Is curriculum still a priority in education? @greeborunner.bsky.social takes a look. teachreal.wordpress.com/2026/01/19/s...
