Elaine Long
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elainelong.bsky.social
Elaine Long
@elainelong.bsky.social
580 followers 780 following 54 posts
20 years in the classroom | English teacher | HoD | AHT | Currently Associate Professor (teaching)
@ IOE, UCL | Programme Leader for UCL ECF Programme | UCL International Leadership Programmes | Co-Host ECF Staffroom Podcast | Schnauzer Lover.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Elaine Long
markquinn1968.bsky.social
Season 6 opener of my Staffroom podcast with @elainelong.bsky.social

Bringing some sanity to the 'reading wars' we hope.
www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/202...
Bringing balance to the 'reading wars' debate | The Staffroom: S06E01
A holistic view of how phonics, writing, reading and language come together to make a child truly literate.
www.ucl.ac.uk
November 7, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
thewoodbug.bsky.social
Fantastic to see that our article on the experiences of autistic teachers in Poland has been published open access in the International Journal of Inclusive Education 🙌https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2025.2518393#abstract #AutismResearch
‘We are here and we deserve it’: being an autistic teacher in Poland
Despite an increasing focus on autism, neurodiversity and inclusion in the education sector, there remains limited awareness of the experiences, needs and strengths of autistic educators. This gap ...
www.tandfonline.com
June 21, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
twperry1.bsky.social
Co-creation of research agendas could strengthen policy research engagement wonkhe.com/blogs/co-cre...
Co-creation of research agendas could strengthen policy research engagement
Drawing on research on the conditions for effective engagement between research and policy, Georgiana Mihut, Sevda Ozsezer-Kurnuc and Thomas Perry consider whether policymakers should be involved earl...
wonkhe.com
June 18, 2025 at 9:10 AM
elainelong.bsky.social
A must listen for teachers and leaders. @evelynforde1.bsky.social tells us why mattering is so important @markquinn1968.bsky.social
Making sure everyone matters: Evelyn Forde tells 'herstory' | The Staffroom: S05E04
Evelyn Forde shares her lived experience, from not feeling she mattered in school to becoming headteacher of the year.
www.ucl.ac.uk
June 6, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
lucyfoulkes.bsky.social
I’m in the Guardian today, arguing that we should stop them all-class mental health lessons in schools

I've thought very carefully about ‘going public’ with this, because it's a sensitive argument to make, especially in the face of so many young people struggling.

(cont 🧵)

tinyurl.com/vun92cz7
Mental-health lessons in schools sound like a great idea. The trouble is, they don’t work | Lucy Foulkes
All-class therapy sessions don’t help, and may even make matters worse. The evidence shows we need different solutions, says Dr Lucy Foulkes, an academic psychologist at Oxford University
www.theguardian.com
May 21, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
barbarableiman.bsky.social
This is a superb piece. It simultaneously made me want to jump for joy and sit with my head in my hands and weep. Pretty much everything Sam Gibbs argues for is what I've been on about for the last decade or more - losses that I've witnessed that have transformed
www.tes.com/magazine/tea...
1/
How we dumbed down teaching - and what we must do to fix it
Over the past decade, teaching has been pushed towards a prescriptive model that reduces intellectual curiosity and overlooks essential classroom engagement, argues Sam Gibbs
www.tes.com
May 7, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
cmooreanderson.bsky.social
Worth reading:

NEU's research into:
The impact of standardised curricula on teacher professionalism
#UKEd

neu.org.uk/latest/libra...
Workload A poor perception of workload was a common issue across all respondents, and was not determined by use, or non-use, of standardised curricula. There were no significant differences between the workload perceptions of non-standardised curriculum users and standardised curriculum users. This finding applied to both primary and secondary teachers, and to both full and part-time teachers. Workload’ emerged from the study as a highly complex issue that cannot be reduced to a simplistic notion of ‘hours worked’. Curriculum design and lesson planning are clearly activities that require time. However, if these are activities that teachers value, then trying to remove these activities from teachers to tackle workload issues does not necessarily tackle the ‘work strain’ that teachers experience. It may also be the case that standardised curricula have not reduced teacher workload, but have simply changed its nature. Instead of spending time researching material and selecting resources, teachers are spending time interpreting and adapting generic materials to meet the needs of their pupils. The interviews suggested that teachers saw standardised curricula as having positive uses that were limited and precise: to cover for absence, to compensate for a lack of specialist knowledge, to reduce aspects of workload, and to mitigate the problems of high teacher turnover. Beyond discussion of these uses, respondents repeatedly expressed concerns about a range of issues related to autonomy, self- efficacy and workload: standardised curricula embodied a lack of trust in teacher expertise; teachers lacked the freedom to adapt standardised curricula to meet the particular needs of their pupils; standardised curricula functioned as a control mechanism to monitor teachers’ work; practices of collaborative and flexible planning were being replaced by standardised commercial or in-house curriculum packages ‘imposed from above’;
April 29, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
sparkes66.bsky.social
This.
suttontrust.bsky.social The Sutton Trust @suttontrust.bsky.social · Apr 22
💬 "We’re no longer even making glacial progress towards closing the gap – we’re going backwards."

The gap in outcomes between pupils from richer and poorer backgrounds is unacceptable.

Concerted efforts is needed to level the playing field.
Ten ways to close the attainment gap - The Sutton Trust
School leaders' union, ASCL, detail a list of practical policies to close the attainment gap.
www.suttontrust.com
April 23, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
barbarableiman.bsky.social
I just LOVE this from @emmaturner75.bsky.social's recent blog. It gives me such confidence in the amazing practitioners out there like her & it's great to see that there's such an appetite for the kind of English teaching I've spent my whole career doing, arguing for & trying to offer support for!
April 22, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
barbarableiman.bsky.social
There's some debate about my piece on X & a blog by David Didau agreeing with much of what I say but warning against a return to 'some mythical version of the past'. I've written a response to this idea of a 'myth' of a different kind of English on my own blog: www.barbarableiman.com/post/a-respo...
April 21, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
cmooreanderson.bsky.social
"It would recognise that good teaching often involves navigating tensions between competing aims – freedom and structure, tradition and innovation, care and rigour. And it would treat evidence not as a mandate, but as a resource for deliberation and reflection."
April 16, 2025 at 5:05 AM
elainelong.bsky.social
“truthfully, we've got to change the culture that they're consuming and the means by which our technology is facilitating this culture.”
March 22, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
ucl-ioe-phd.bsky.social
A new paper from researchers at the Centre for Educational Neuroscience shares best practices for evaluating what works in the classroom.

Read about their findings below 📚

#BrainAwarenessWeek
New CEN paper on best practices in evaluating “What Works” in the classroom
Classrooms are complex places. It can be hard to work out what classroom practices are most effective in improving learning outcomes, behaviour, and wellbeing. But there’s general acceptance …
www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk
March 14, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
cmooreanderson.bsky.social
The key, for me, is to ensure that teaching is "recursive", as in, it is a back-and-forth endeavour in which students and teacher converse to ensure each party understands the other. These feedback loops need to be frequent, but are removed in the current Taylorist movement which linearises teaching
cmooreanderson.bsky.social Christian Moore-Anderson @cmooreanderson.bsky.social · Mar 9
The anecdotal evidence of Taylorism in UK education is rising. This is terrible news for both students and teachers.

There is a crucial difference between:

•Teaching to students (linear and deterministic), and
•Teaching with them (circular and emergent).
#UKEd #EduSky #SciTeachUK
Reflecting on conversations with the RSC trainees this week it was clear they are getting very different experiences in schools and not all of them are positive. Here are a few things I was told by trainees in schools just now. - Lessons can only be taken directly from the centrally designed scheme of work. Regular inspections from the school and trust to check fidelity of these even down to the lesson (e.g. they look at the scheme of work and say you should be on lesson 4.4 but say you are on lesson 4.2 then that is a problem). -Trainees told that students are not allowed to ask questions in class. No, not even your super curious Y7s. They should accept the knowledge being presented by the teacher. -Trainees told not to ask the class or individual pupils questions. Questions can only be asked during particular lesson segments and then must be whole class and answered on mini whiteboards. For some of the trainees this means that they could never try out any of the experiments they did with me at STEM learning because it’s not in their SoW and not sanctioned by their trust. Many were frustrated by this. I encouraged them to speak up for education as an experience, not just a slog through content. Reading between the lines I know why some of these measures have been put in place, lack of resources, non specialist teachers and making it easy for supply teachers joining. But it is putting committed young teachers off. What can we do about the relentless creep of “curriculum delivery” rather than teaching?
March 9, 2025 at 10:37 AM
elainelong.bsky.social
Greenwich looking glorious in the sunshine
March 9, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
profdamienpage.bsky.social
Students from working class backgrounds still make up only 5% of entrants to medical schools across the UK.

This is what happens when widening participation is an activity rather than a central guiding mission.
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Only 5% of UK medical school entrants are working class, data shows
Sutton Trust says underrepresentation of poorer students is ‘outrageous’ but number has doubled in 10 years to 2022
www.theguardian.com
February 27, 2025 at 5:58 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
trivium21c.bsky.social
“Class is a key factor that determines who can make it in the creative industries” www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
Who is ‘working class’ and why does it matter in the arts?
Prominent figures in the arts say class is a key factor that determines who can make it in the creative industries
www.theguardian.com
February 23, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Elaine Long
sbmost.bsky.social
Seriously! Why do so many scientific, educational, and media outlets still include an X/Twitter "share" button with no corresponding one for Bluesky?

Read the room, folks.
February 23, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
drsamsims.bsky.social
This is the most clear-eyed thing I have read on the intent and likely consequences of what is happening in the US federal govt
February 23, 2025 at 6:53 PM
elainelong.bsky.social
www.forbes.com/sites/tomasp...
Women, Men, And Meritocracy: A Scientific Perspective
Will the current backlash against diversity and inclusion boost or harm meritocracy?
www.forbes.com
February 22, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
jillberry102.bsky.social
"We should perhaps be cautious about being superficially impressed by someone who oozes charisma." My new blog post this week: jillberry102.blog/2025/02/04/c...
Charisma? Gravitas? Or ‘Presence’?
I recently enjoyed this short (6 minute) podcast from Bennie Kara on the subject of ‘Charisma’.  I agree with Bennie that ‘charisma’ isn’t necessarily something we should see as…
jillberry102.blog
February 8, 2025 at 9:08 AM
elainelong.bsky.social
Great way to start the day
February 1, 2025 at 12:59 PM
elainelong.bsky.social
If you want to go beyond simplified conceptions of the learning sciences, this is a must listen @markquinn1968.bsky.social

www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/202...
"Asking the awkward questions" | The Staffroom: S05E01 | IOE - Faculty of Education and Society
In this episode, Guy Claxton takes us beyond simplified conceptions of the learning sciences and explains why teachers are sometimes vulnerable to fads and trends.
www.ucl.ac.uk
January 31, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
markquinn1968.bsky.social
There many jobs in 'teaching'. In this ECF Staffroom episode, @elainelong.bsky.social and I quizzed Sally Adams about her route from #EarlyYears teacher to research lead. #Education @ioe.bsky.social www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/202...
From the early years school to the research school | ECF Staffroom: S04E06 | IOE - Faculty of Education and Society
In this episode, Sally Adams tells us about her new role leading adult learning – and the ways teaching can be a great stepping stone for a host of different careers.
www.ucl.ac.uk
December 14, 2024 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Elaine Long
markquinn1968.bsky.social
This is one of our most provocative episodes of ECF Staffroom, dispelling some #EdNeuroSci myths. @elainelong.bsky.social with Dr Rebecca Gordon youtube.com/watch?v=__zw...
youtube.com
December 14, 2024 at 3:19 PM