English Teacher + National Curriculum Lead - OCL. Lover of vocab instruction, artful sentences + competitive hobby TV shows
Joined February 2021
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We know that writers often explore binary concepts: transient and permanent; concrete and abstract; constant and volatile. Teaching versatile vocabulary in pairs allows students to notice, create and analyse these patterns. This is what we want in their backpacks.
Josie Sacks retweeted
It's taken a village to raise a child, but if your village has an English department like ours, that child is going to get a bloody good deal! We are so proud of @bridiemcpherson and @VersatileVocab1 who are two of the most talented people in education without a doubt!
@VersatileVocab1 and I are delighted to be amoung these outstanding schools with +1.5 P8 for English. @OasisSouthBank English results are 12th best in the country! With a 65% FSM cohort, 120 students in the year and 95% EBACC, and a whole lot of dedicated and expert teachers.
Josie Sacks retweeted
Huge congratulations to @bridiemcpherson and her colleagues for an exceptional performance. This simple number represents a huge number of children's lives made tangibly better. There is nothing better than this. Well done to Oasis Academy Southbank.
@VersatileVocab1 and I are delighted to be amoung these outstanding schools with +1.5 P8 for English. @OasisSouthBank English results are 12th best in the country! With a 65% FSM cohort, 120 students in the year and 95% EBACC, and a whole lot of dedicated and expert teachers.
🕺🕺thank you @Mouhssin_Ismail - this is what *really* matters most to us + to our English curriculum
Josie Sacks retweeted
@VersatileVocab1 and I are delighted to be amoung these outstanding schools with +1.5 P8 for English. @OasisSouthBank English results are 12th best in the country! With a 65% FSM cohort, 120 students in the year and 95% EBACC, and a whole lot of dedicated and expert teachers.
Josie Sacks retweeted
Best day of the year at South Bank! @VersatileVocab1
and I had been dreaming of these kinds of numbers when we started implementing this English curriculum and are so proud of our team + students
9s 16%
7+ 52%
5+ 80%
4+ 93%
Yesterday was bloody brilliant! So so proud of our students, our English HoD and 👑 @bridiemcpherson, our team, and our curriculum. It really really works!!!
9s 16%
7+ 52%
5+ 80%
4+ 93%
🕺 versatile vocabulary, concise, precise knowledge, explicit writing instruction 🕺
So proud of our students, our staff and our bloody lovely school!
We are absolutely delighted to be able to share an OUTSTANDING judgement from our recent Ofsted visit! ✨
Thank you to our brilliant staff, students and families for making OASB the special place it is.💙
The full report can be found here: oasisacademysouthbank.org/up…
This!!!! +versatile vocab, explicitly taught, to make those concepts:
1. Codified
2. Accessible to every student
3. Regularly recalled
Josie Sacks retweeted
11. Versatile Vocabulary: building the foundations of an empowering English curriculum
Josie Sacks @VersatileVocab1, Oasis Academy South Bank has been working on helping students feel successful (not alienated) in English
If you’ve got a spare 10 mins and fancy thinking about curric / vocab, I made a session for @WeAreInBetaPod Curriculum Thinking Week - it’s about how to use versatile Tier 2 vocabulary to create an empowering English Curriculum that leaves no one behind weareinbeta.community/posts/…
Josie Sacks retweeted
🧵 Secondary school context: we use a 'sports tracker' for students athletes who are (sometimes, recently) falling below school expectation - a final chance to improve their attitude to learning around school before a fixture (they get to use this "card" once a year only).
Thoughts… 💭
Y6 child loves rugby but his behaviour & attitude towards his learning is so poor right now.
Only rugby tournament of the year is during the first week of S1 (full day). He’s the best player.
Do you remove him from the team & not allow him to go?
#edutwitter
19%Yes… if so why?
44%No… if so why?
37%See Results
2,731 votes • Final results Josie Sacks retweeted
I'm proud to announce that my new book Responsive Coaching is out now 💥
It's the product of 10+ years coaching, 3 years writing, and a year testing in school, and aims to help coaches to be as impactful and useful as possible 💪
I’m usually allergic to acronyms but ‘zoom in a BIT’ is v powerful for helping students internalise expectations of analysis. Works across Lit + Lang! drive.google.com/file/d/1ET8…
Work with us @OasisSouthBank !!! tes.com/jobs/vacancy/associa… I really bloody love our curriculum, pedagogy, systems, staff + students. I think the English Dept are doing something really special - DM me! Come and see us teach! And apply for this corker of a job!
Josie Sacks retweeted
From our #IntlYALitMonth curated by @juliaerin80:
Pet, by @yungdeadthing.
A haunting novel about a creature that escapes from an artist's canvas, whose talent is sniffing out monsters in a world that claims they don't exist anymore.
glli-us.org/2023/05/18/intly…
#ReadingAfrica
ALT Pet, by Akwaeke Emezi.
Josie Sacks retweeted
We had whole school outset today @OasisSouthBank! I had the great privilege of visiting @WatersideAcad for the day! The #1 school in the country for p8 with 60%+ of students disadvantaged (we are #3). Loads of takeaways and reflections from a brilliant visit 🧵
Josie Sacks retweeted
Last week, I was lucky enough to be invited to visit @OasisSouthBank by @VersatileVocab1 and @bridiemcpherson to see their English department in action. We left feeling so grateful for the team’s generosity & incredibly enthused by the fab practice we saw. Highlights attached:
💭 @bridiemcpherson and I have been thinking hard about thinking hard in English and across the curriculum - how do we get students to REALLY think? This is what we’ve got so far… here’s how how it could sound in a classroom! 💭
She’s the drop in 👑 ! Magic magic magic.
We’re big fans of drop ins @OasisSouthBank. In the English team, each teacher does an average of 6 drop ins a week. It’s non hierarchical — we all do them, for anyone! This open door culture can feel daunting at first, but when it’s embedded, it’s totally transformative. 🧵