Lindsay Bruce is a Lead Practitioner and History Teacher at Moreton School in Wolverhampton. This is the first in a series of blogs about their motivation to foster a whole-school approach to reading, their experiences on this journey and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Last year I wrote at the start of […]
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We’ve selected a winter-themed traditional tale and poem from the resources in your Oxford Owl subscription, to help your Reception and Year 1 children engage with stories and poems. Storytime and Poetry Time resources Both sets of resources are designed for use in a whole class setting, outside of phonics lessons, for example, at the […]
Read moreContinuing 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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Jill Carter shares her advice for making the most out of quotations during this revision period. Students, teachers and parents worry about quotations or as they are now acceptably known quotes (in my day that was a verb…). ‘Eek – Macbeth – how can I learn a quote for every possible essay scenario?’ I […]
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Graham Elsdon looks at ways literature students can usefully write about drama By the play’s final scene, Macbeth sees life as ‘a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage’. There is a metatheatrical quality to many of Shakespeare’s works, yet some students find it hard to write about plays as plays. […]
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Jill Carter encourages teachers and students to spend time exploring and broadening vocabulary. Vocabulary is power. And, like a lot of power, it is hard won and easily lost. Students’ vocabulary is becoming increasingly limited in a world where it simply isn’t fashionable to exploit vocabulary for effect – in a world of posts, texts […]
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Author Pete Ellison explores the motivation and approach taken by the Catapult team during the development of the new Catapult resources. At a time when the demands of external assessment at KS2 and GCSE have never been higher, we know that many young people are not regularly reading for pleasure (recent research by the […]
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