I will forever remember the academic year 2020-21. Not for the lockdowns, or the bubbles bursting; not for the lateral flow tests or constant sanitising; not for the masks and visors, or contact tracing. No, as memorable as Covid has been, I will remember, with relish, the year marking as we know it we came […]
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Each workbook in the Get It Right: Boost Your Vocabulary series offers targeted support for exanding students’ vocabulary and addressing the word gap by exploring ambitious words in context and unpicking layers of meaning, resulting in more confident readers and articulate writers. Here are five reasons why your school should try the Get It Right: […]
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What Lemov makes clear here is that there is something important happening when we share reading, indeed not a singular something but a whole bunch of somethings. The complexity of reading has been well documented (Scarborough’s reading rope makes this very clear). Through the reading process, our students are acquiring vocabulary, developing phonological and grammatical […]
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The day to day existence of a teacher has changed beyond recognition this year as we moved from classroom to remote learning; from bubble to zone; back to remote learning and now back to the classroom once more! Phewf! Given the many, many ways we have adapted as a profession; isn’t it time to take […]
Read moreIn my previous blog ‘ Four Stages of Reimagining the Classroom’ , I presented the fictional Hammerhill Academy’s English Department and their journey to setting up a virtual learning provision. Since then it would be fair to say that Hammerhill – like all real schools across the U.K – would have gone through a rapidly transformational voyage of virtual learning discovery. The most […]
Read moreIt is almost impossible to read about the pandemic in the UK news without coming across some reference to concern regarding pupils’ mental health as a result of lockdown. Whether or not you believe the accuracy of the scale of the reported issue there is no doubt that, as with adults, young people have found […]
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If you had said a year ago that working from home was possible for a teacher, the idea would have been unthinkable. We can’t teach from home! We need to be with our pupils – seeing what they’re doing, motivating them, watching out for their behaviour and making sure they’re focused. How would we mark […]
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Super authors, super accessible, simply super-readable fiction for KS3/11-14 Written by award-winning authors and developed in partnership with Barrington Stoke, the experts in producing accessible fiction, Super-Readable Rollercoasters aim to encourage less-confident readers and support them to become life-long readers. With findings from the latest Word Gap report by Oxford University Press showing that pupils may have read less widely for pleasure during lockdown, these new titles […]
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Metacognition is about pupils’ ability to monitor and direct their own learning. The concept of metacognition has been around for a long time, but seems to be having a revival recently, perhaps in part owing to some of the challenges presented by lockdown. Beyond the nightmare navigation of zooms, screen sharing and behaviour management from […]
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If you’re new to the role of literacy lead, or just have an interest in approaching Literacy across the school I’d strongly advise beginning your journey with vocabulary – I have written two blogs on this (links below). It makes sense that before students can access texts, we teach them how to access words, and […]
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