Take the quiz: https://clutterbug.me/what-clutterbug-are-you-test

I found this kind of fun as a springboard for organisational ideas. The quiz results are followed up by a video for tips.

Personally, I am a bee:

Love visual abundance and organizational abundance. You prefer to see your everyday used items instead of hiding them away. You are also a bit of a perfectionist and tend to pile items until you can put them away properly.

What little things have you implemented to reduce the cognitive overload of life and/or stay organised?

Some random ones of mine:

1. "Formulas" to fall back on - outfit formula for when I don't want to think about what to wear, making dinner formula (repetition of what ingredients I buy, very similar meals just with key components changed around)
2. On the clothes - I prioritise black clothes so that I can throw together outfits easily. I have lots of variants of black top + black bottom.
3. Write things down somewhere. Immediately. I use thougt capturing apps/ software like Google keep, obsidian but also have used bullet journals or just notebooks with page numbers. I'm currently building a note on obsidian with important info for things I always need to refer to at random times like national insurance number.
4. Always label files on computer in a logical way. Avoid the urge to name things sjdudnskao as this will only come back to haunt you!
5. Use lots of key words in emai

This video (there's a series of them but the first one is sufficient at first) was what helped me get started with obsidian.

I find it extremely useful for writing everything down and being able to easily access my thoughts and important information.

I also use the calendar plug in and daily notes. Every day I open a daily note and use it for my to do lists and to note down anything important that happened that day.

I have tried many, many ways to stay organised and to capture my thoughts. One of my main issues is getting myself to actually look at what I've written down. I have a tendency to let things disappear into the background and click off reminders without even realising. I also love s physical notebook but it takes a lot to get into the habit of checking it daily.

One of the things I am trying is making my phone itself a dashboard for organisation using widgets. On my front page here I have a todoist widget and a small view of calendar. On the next homepage I have just one big Google keep note widget which I'm using as a brain dump for when I get random stressy thoughts in my head/ things I need to remember and deal with later. I also have a full monthly view of calendar as another widget on another home screen.

I really like it, especially the ca

Teacher pay rise: all you need to know

The government has offered a 6.5 per cent pay rise for teachers from September 2023. What will happen next?

The Department for Education and all four major teaching unions issued a joint announcement today that teachers will receive a 6.5 per cent pay rise from September 2023.

The announcement comes after a long-running dispute over pay and months of strike action by teachers.

But how will the pay rise be funded? Is it affordable for schools? Will all teachers receive a raise and will it mean strikes will now not go ahead next term?

Here’s everything you need to know:

1. What pay rise has the government awarded to teachers?

The government has decided to accept the reported School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommendation of a 6.5 per cent pay rise for teachers in England from September this year.

This is more than the DfE had originally proposed in February (3.5 per cent) but for the second year is less than the “fully funded, in

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Teachers, junior doctors and police to get 6% pay rises Sunak will make schools and hospitals find the money for public sector pay deal Sunak will make schools and hospitals find the money for public sector pay deal

Rishi Sunak will give millions of public sector workers including teachers, junior doctors and police officers pay rises of at least 6 per cent.

The Times has been told that the prime minister has accepted the recommendations of all the independent pay review bodies despite concerns that raises could fuel inflation. The government will not borrow more to fund the raises, meaning departments face a £3 billion squeeze on their budgets.

Teachers will be given a 6.5 per cent pay rise in an attempt to end industrial action that has forced thousands of schools to close. Junior d

What is EPI?

Extensive Processing Instruction, or EPI, was created by Gianfranco Conti. It focuses on the teaching of chunks of language rather than singular words and isolated grammar teaching, with a heavy emphasis on serving real life communication.

The components of EPI are: Chunking, comprehensible input, input flooding (teachers provide students with opportunities to hear and use the target linguistic patterns over and over again), controlled input (highly structured input at the early stages of learning target linguistic patterns), thorough processing, pushed output (output that forces students to use target chunks they have just practised through listening/reading), recycling, automaticity

Read in more detail: https://gianfrancoconti.com/2018/12/05/how-i-teach-lexicogrammar-part-2-the-8-tenets-of-extensive-processing-instruction-in-the-novice-to-intermediate-classroom/

EPI teaching is arranged around a sequence called MARS EARS

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Nice extract from a great book "How to Talk so Kids will Learn at Home and at School" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Great book for reflecting on how we can use our talk as teachers in a productive way in order to get the best responses from our students.

Lots of fantastic tips for classroom management. Really makes you think about how as a teacher our response can escalate a situation very quickly. Alternatively, we can respond in a way to de-escalate. Make students feel valued and heard and then redirect to learning. Not always that easy of course but still very effective.

Book: How to Keep House While Drowning by K C Davis

Style: Informal, personal, short chapters, advice

Content: Advice on routines and methods for keeping your house tidy and functional when you are struggling either due to neurodivergence, disability or mental illness. Some practical tips but a lot of advice on how to reframe self-talk and how you think about your house work tasks.

Why I recommend: It's a very quick read and not packed full of how-tos and practical advice but what it does do is extremely effective in my opinion. The emphasis on reframing your thoughts has been very effective for me. The takeaways from the book were things I could easily implement without feeling like I now had a long overwhelming to do list.

Some key things off the top of my head:

• Tidiness or untidiness is morally neutral. Don't assign morality to how go

Just got sent this while I'm off sick.

These are bits of my newly put up display board.