SchoolRubric

Ask a Grade 5 class a question in French and you often get silence. Hailey Redman, a Core French teacher in Ontario, says it isn't that they don't know the words. "The fear of making a mistake feels far bigger than the desire to speak up." Her fix is low-stakes games. In one warm-up, students repeat key sentence structures 15 to 20 times in a few minutes without it feeling like a drill. #CoreFrench #LanguageTeaching schoolrubric.org/game-based-…

"Feeling alone or feeling afraid of the future is expected. Please validate your emotions and be thankful." Zixi (Sissi) Li on the gratitude practice that carried her through a semester stranded far from home. schoolrubric.org/gratitude-e… #Gratitude #SEL

A busy school is not always a focused school. Via @thornell5, Educentric asks whether today's work moves the team toward its most important outcome, a useful test for any leadership team this week. #BoldSchools

Via @LMReadWrite: a new monthly series for SchoolRubric opens with four picture books about family and the writing lessons inside each one. A good shelf check for any K-8 classroom. #PictureBooks

Differentiate the support, not the target. @MattRhoads1990 on why an easier objective for one group widens a gap instead of closing it. Worth a pause before tomorrow's lesson plans.

A beginning teacher asked what veterans wish they had known. @CaseyJ_edu pointed to the 50 Tips for New Teachers he wrote with fellow SchoolRubric authors, a solid place to start for anyone new to the classroom.

A scaffold that never comes down becomes the task. @MattRhoads1990 on planning the fade at the same time you plan the support, a coaching habit worth stealing. #InstructionalCoaching

People remember how we responded long after we move on to the next task. Thank you @curriculumblog for lifting up Sonia Matthews' first piece for SchoolRubric, a reminder that how we make students feel is what they carry with them.

Franklin Elementary in Moline, IL: students meeting reading growth targets went from 39% to 72% in four years, and from 48% to 84% in math. Office referrals fell from 184 to 43. How @MolineCVSchools' Franklin does it (h/t @thornell5): schoolrubric.org/schools-wor…

Learning that feels easy is often shallow. @MattRhoads1990 on desirable difficulties: interleaving, spacing, and retrieval feel worse in the moment and build more durable memory. Your students will resist them. Use them anyway.

Feedback is easy to talk about and hard to do well. @thornell5 points school leaders to two strong resources, including rubrics used as tools for feedback rather than just evaluation. Bookmark-worthy.

Leading learning in the age of AI is on every school leader's desk. @curriculumblog and ARTLL are hosting a free Pocket PD with @E_Sheninger on November 10. Worth a spot on the calendar.

Retrieval over rereading, mixing over blocking, spacing over cramming. @MattRhoads1990 makes the case that the cheapest instructional upgrade is changing how students practice, no new curriculum required. A good one to try this week.

This week on our Leadership Vacancies index: 55 open positions, 47 schools, 30 countries. Refreshed 26 Oct. Free to browse, no account needed. #InternationalSchools #SchoolLeadership schoolrubric.org/leadership-…

How a school welcomes a substitute shapes whether that substitute comes back. This new piece digs into a 2026 Michigan study and what principals can do about it.

School doesn't come with instructions. @Toddteaching wrote 100 strategies for students in grades 3 to 5, each with the reason behind it, across six chapters that follow the school day. schoolrubric.org/book/transf…

"Do you have a minute?" is rarely about the minute. @giroux72 says the real question underneath is: am I someone you have time for? And teachers read the answer in a leader's face before a word is spoken. His approach for the days the honest answer is no: hands off the keyboard, name a real time, then show up. schoolrubric.org/do-you-have… #SchoolLeadership

A named thank-you at the end of a class or a meeting turns gratitude into a routine instead of a reaction. Congratulations to @natasha_nurse and Lindsey Cannon on the new chapter.

Fear of mistakes can quiet a language classroom fast. Hailey Redman's Grade 5 Core French students found their voices through low-prep games, and we're proud to have her story on SchoolRubric.

Gossip, isolation and manipulation are normalized on reality TV. @LinSimpson66 turns the clip into the lesson: name the relational aggression, re-watch it from the victim's side, find a show that doesn't need it. schoolrubric.org/resist-rela…