Ben Newmark

Agree and also I think we may all need to read Seven Myths again...

🎃 Mark Ghoulrich 👻@markgoodrich.bsky.social

A decade after it was published, I finally got around to reading Making Good Progress by @daisychristo.bsky.social and its really fantastically useful and clear in explaining assessment issues. Rather worryingly, it isn’t dated at all. Schools are still overdoing summative assessment.

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Simone Beach

@simonebeach.bsky.social

I am all in when a story is about strong, complicated, female protagonists. Eva and Ray deliver just that. Highly recommend this book.

20h

It's a brilliant book. Highly recommend.

Anna Horroridge@anna-orridge.bsky.social

Parch Marks is a cli fi novel with a dual narrative - near future and Middle Bronze age, with some folk horror elements. Archaeologist Eva Sinclair excavates a mysterious massacre #Halloween #HalloweenReads Pumpkin carved by @motiblackart.bsky.social www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-p...

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substack.nomoremarking.comWhy are we making these mistakes again?“I can explain and analyse what’s going wrong with government education policy”

A masterpiece by @daisychristo.bsky.social. Only thing I'd add is changes being proposed are only possible because we have rising standards. Once they drop (and they will) behaviour worsens and we get a crisis and return to sense. How much damage first? substack.nomoremarking.com/p/why-are-we...

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Dan Stucke

@danielstucke.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

The shivers that went through my soul remembering APP and ECDL etc. Brrrr 🫨🥶. Great piece.

substack.nomoremarking.comWhy are we making these mistakes again?“I can explain and analyse what’s going wrong with government education policy”

Also Daisy hasn't gone into how an approach to inclusion defined by idea it means teachers making many individual level adaptations in their classrooms at the same time is going to cause a behaviour crisis and make everything much worse even faster.

Clocks to back, railway track...

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Aaron Allermann

@mtvcdm.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

He's at a place that's probably already planning the statue of him. Sometimes you just give the Curt Cignetti answer: what do you mean when am I going to a big club, I'm the big club now. This is now the big club.

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Aaron Allermann

@mtvcdm.bsky.social

Replying to @mtvcdm.bsky.social

I just won the Europa League here, I got to the Champions League quarters here two years ago and last I checked I'm second in the Champions League table now having just beaten the Premier League previously-perfect leaders. What do you *mean* 'when am I going somewhere big', are you daft

Man City must hate playing us so much.

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Mr E

@theniceman.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

Sourdough in this country is a disaster.

Ghost Ship used to be a good supermarket beer. Ruined now. Even the packaging is awful.

@susanwhitehouse.bsky.social

I know some of you aren't going to like this but Jason's bread isn't very nice. It's too chewy. And sourdough in general is overrated. Tiger bread is nicer.

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Susan Whitehouse

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

#FridayFive 1. Windmills of your mind - Noel Harrison 2. Leaves that are green - Simon and Garfunkel 3. Moondance - Van Morrison 4. Black magic woman - Fleetwood Mac 5. Fare thee well - Indigo Girls

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Theo Kuechel

@theokl.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

Autumn. #FridayFive. 1. Westlin' Winds - Dick Gaughan. (Burns) 2. Four Strong Winds - Neil Young (Ian & Sylvia) 3. Season of the Witch - Donovan 4. Forever Autumn - Justin Hayward 5. John Barleycorn Must Die - Traffic

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Tom Needham

@tomneedham.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

1. Repetition by The Fall 2. Halloween by Siouxie and The Banshees 3. Fire Cracker by Yellow Magic Orchestra 4. Stormy Monday by BB King 5. Time of the Season by The Zombies #FridayFive

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Paul Jones

@cathsbruv.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

The leaves that are green: Simon and Garfunkel Harvest Moon: Neil Young Autumn Sweater: Yo La Tengo Autumn Almanac: The Kinks Autumn in new York: Ella Fitzgerald #fridayfive

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Matilde Warden

@matildewarden.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

#FridayFive 1. November Rain - Guns n Roses 2. Falling - Julee Cruise 3. California Dreamin’ - The Mamas and The Papas 4. When September Ends - Green Day 5. October - U2

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MrsVeriTea

@mrsveritea.bsky.social

Replying to @bennewmark.bsky.social

Happy half term Ben. My “Autumn” #FridayFive 1) "Wake Me Up When September Ends" – Green Day 2) "We Fell in Love in October" – girl in red 3) "Stick Season" – Noah Kahan 4) "cardigan" – Taylor Swift 5) "Autumnsong" – Manic Street Preachers

@simonknight100.bsky.social

Autumn. #FridayFive. 1. Who Knows where the Time Goes? Fairport Convention. 2. Seasons. Future Islands. 3. More Than This. Roxy Music. 4. Boys of Summer. Don Henley. 5. Harvest Moon. Neil Young.

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Simon Knight

So much in this that I will need to read it again, just fabulously and provocatively important.

Ben Newmark@bennewmark.bsky.social

New. What those who find learning easiest can learn from those who find it hardest. I worked hard on this. bennewmark.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/w...

bennewmark.wordpress.comWhat those who find learning easiest can learn from those who find it hardest.This speech was given to Harris Westminster Sixth Form on Friday 9th October 2026. … Thank you for having me. It is an honour to speak to you – the adults in charge of one of the highest-perf…

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Anna Horroridge

@anna-orridge.bsky.social

Fancy a cli fi mystery with a Bronze Age narrative and some spooky folk horror spice? Check out Parch Marks in time for Halloween (Pumpkin courtesy of the very talented @motiblackart.bsky.social 🧡) www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-p...

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🎃 Mark Ghoulrich 👻

@markgoodrich.bsky.social

Seems a bit weird sharing this excellent piece of writing on social media but I guess we are all the intended audience so here goes!

Claire Harley@claireharley.bsky.social

Solitude Deprivation - why it's so important to be alone. substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.comSolitude Deprivation: Why Sometimes It’s Important to Be AloneA two week experiment in ending my social media addiction!

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Jo DHT

@meredithfox22.bsky.social

Love this thread already!

Ben Newmark@bennewmark.bsky.social

1. Take a tour with me around the bars of Bole Road in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the late 2000s. It was a wild time and I think I'm a decent guide. This might be sporadic. If you want more encourage me! If you're in you'll need some context. That's up next.

9. Next the German Beer Garden. They brewed their own beer here and it was *good*. Light or dark. Came in towers for groups and ridiculously huge steins that were silly because they were warm by the time you got to the bottom. We ordered them anyway because it made us feel like we were hobbits.

10. The Germans among us would always point out all the ways in which it wasn't properly German until we sang Wind of Change at them until they forgot to be cross and joined in.

7. Next up, Broadway, opposite Mekush art gallery. Again I'd usually go there alone because that was best way to melt into the 1980s NY nostalgia. Neon. Peanuts on the bar, always empty, always raining outside. Music exclusively 80s power ballads and Whiney Houston. You're sad but you want to be.

8. Interjection to say what made this all so interesting is that it was like going into someone else's dream. This is how they remembered what they'd seen. This is what they wanted to create. It was beautiful.

5. But before doing that I want to be super clear I am not taking the piss or being ironic here. These are all brilliant places. Odd yes but they worked and I have nothing but fond memories of them. Ok. The London Pub.

6. This place had a Victorian feeling. They'd managed to get taxidermy from somewhere. There was a huge model of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Seating was in wooden booths. They served fish and chips. Sort of. Old books everywhere. I liked to go there with a book in the rainy season.

3. My social crowd was cool. A mix of Ethiopian university lecturers and their friends I'd met on my VSO placement, colleagues from school, NGO people and international business people investing in stuff like coffee and flowers. We'd usually all end up in the same place but before that..

4. I liked to go out on my own to enjoy some of the oddest, best places you can imagine. You've got to understand diaspora was flooding back from the places they'd sheltered in during more dangerous times and brought back their interpretations of those places. So the first stop is The London Pub.

2. At the time Meles was President. He was repressive but gave Ethiopia political stability and this meant foreign investment and diaspora return. It was boomtown. Ethiopian, Kenyan, Nigerian, Chinese, Italian, Greek. Loads more. Aid was flooding in too, bringing NGO workers and teachers. Like me.

Every time I do ten pin bowling I think I'm going to be good at it and every time I'm awful.

@welcometowillerby.bsky.social

My wife and I are having a spirited debate. About what beavers eat. We discuss Narnia and beavers amazing tails. And then I remember I can just look it up and do, and tell her the answer is plants and vegetation. She looks at me on my phone. Says. How utterly joyless. And she is right.

Ben Newmark reposted

Willerby

A Year in Willerby. The final twenty five copies of our first ever book are now on sale. Last chance to own one. Fifty uncanny short stories, bound with original lino cut, locally printed and sent from the village individually numbered with a handwritten note. www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4...

etsy.comSecond Printing of A Year in Willerby - Stories and Other Ephemera From a Haunted Village. - Etsy UKThis Literature & Fiction item is sold by WelcometoWillerby. Dispatched from United Kingdom. Listed on 16 Oct, 2026

Ben Newmark reposted

I'm just a middle aged man standing in front of you all asking for @beckyfrancis.bsky.social's curriculum review.

Carrick gone after this?

Ben Newmark reposted

Oliver Mills

@olivermills.bsky.social

I am consiering retraining as a secondary maths teacher. Have any other primary teachers made the same transition? I am aware of the NCETM route but wanted to know how realistic it is. RTs appreciated, especially if have a network involved in teaching.

I'm just a middle aged man standing in front of you all asking for @beckyfrancis.bsky.social's curriculum review.

Ben Newmark reposted