Jill Carter dispels the popular myth that grammar is boring and explains why she thinks it should be revered by teachers and students alike. In the years I have spent around teaching, one of the main subject-related complaints of English teachers is SPaG. The main complaints seem to be: ‘I wasn’t taught grammar […]
Read moreAuthor: Oxford English Team
Without enough language – a word gap – a child is seriously limited in their enjoyment of school and in their success both within school and beyond it. The Oxford Language Report: Why Closing the Word Gap Matters , which brought together the thoughts of a number of leading academics and practitioners, was based on market research with over 1,300 primary and secondary […]
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The last few years have seen us, as English teachers, deluged in pre-20th century literature and non-fiction texts. Simultaneously in the 21st century we have been seriously exploring the treatment of women in society – pay gaps and sexual harassment have been major issues – and rightly so. So how can the male dominance […]
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Continuing our look at the Examiner’s Reports for the 2018 GCSE English Literature exams, as with English Language, students had much to feel proud about. Examiners were bowled over by the creativity displayed by many candidates and the analysis of their set texts. As always there were areas for improvement and we’ve summarised these below […]
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The dust has finally settled on the 2018 exams; students have received their results and the examiners have now published their reports. This year, although examiners found lots to commend students and saw improvements throughout the English Language and Literature exams, they also identified a number of areas where some students struggled. Below are […]
Read moreRebecca Geoghegan is a secondary English teacher and former whole school Literacy Lead with 15 years experience of teaching KS3, GCSE and A Level. There are no short cuts to getting good grades in GCSE English Language, but the development of two key areas can support students in feeling confident when they walk into […]
Read moreI suspect that when they read ‘ Why Closing the Word Gap Matters: Oxford Language Report ’, many teachers nodded in agreement but also, perhaps felt a little depressed by the picture it painted. The fact that many children arrive in school with limited vocabularies compared to their peers is well-known to early years teachers and that this gap persists through secondary school […]
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Summer is the perfect time to catch up on the reading you haven’t found time for during the beginning of the year. Sometimes it can be hard to decide from all the fantastic books that are out there and to give you some inspiration we have put together a list of what the English team […]
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New research from the National Literacy Trust indicates comedy could play an important role in engaging children and young people in reading and writing for enjoyment. The National Literacy Trust survey shows that reading and writing comedy is particularly popular with boys, who are twice as likely as girls to write comedy outside class. With this […]
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This July Oxford’s own amateur music and drama group – MaDSoc – will be co-producing Shakespeare’s timeless comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Oxford-based theatre company, Leaning House. The play will be performed by a mixture of professional and amateur actors and set in the picturesque front quad at OUP’s head office. Jenny Johns (a […]
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