Home - About Me

Hi!   

I'm Helen. I'm a passionate English teacher, former Headteacher, current trust L&T lead and all round thinker about leadership, learning, teaching, curriculum and assessment. 

My core value is the growth of others: students or colleagues.

Inspired by others to dip my toe into the blogging waters. 

Say hi on Twitter at @ralston_h

Publications

Whilst I'm in utter awe of anyone who has managed to write an actual book whilst working full time in education, I have enjoyed contributing some short case studies to the below publications. 

• A template to trigger and capture improved thinking on curriculum and assessment - Impact Journal

• Authentic Assessment: Not Forcing Square Pegs into Round Holes Case study - The Learning Rainforest Fieldbook, Tom Sherrington 

• A Layered approach to wellbeing case study - Stop Talking about Wellbeing, Kat Howard (ideas captured in this blog post also).

• Ambition and Access for All  case study - Bringing Forth the Bard, Zoe Enser 

• Academic and Social Pillars case study - SEND Huh: Curriculum Conversations with SEND Leaders, Mary Myatt and John Tomsett.

Conferences/CPD

And as a utter L&T geek, the occasional opportunity to deliver CPD outside of school is always a blast!  Here is selection below.  I've blogged about a number of them including resources used: 

• Tom Sherrington's Curriculum Masterclass - Curriculum and Assessment - 2 sides of the same coin 

• A Rich Diet for Y7 pupils with SEND - A Myatt & Co video with Mary Myatt

• We are in Beta  - Putting People First - Successful Change Management

• Bucks Teacher Learning Day  - Forming a Culture of Feedback

• ResearchED (National & Kent) on Curriculum and Vocabulary Instruction

• Team English National Conference - Vocabulary Instruction

• LitDrive at Aston University  - Ambition and Access for all in the English Classroom