‘Cultured…Engaged…Informed’. This vision strapline underpins everything we do in my English Department. Vocabulary teaching, naturally, plays an important role in fulfilling this vision. When we spoke to students about the disadvantages that poor vocabulary acquisition brings, the one that came up repeatedly was that of frustration – the inability to communicate that which is in […]
Our selection of books that reflect a wider diversity of authors and characters to help you start diversifying your school’s bookshelves.
Last week we ran an insightful and engaging webinar with Kate Stockings, if you missed it you can catch up here: ‘Making the most of Year 7: How to get our geographers off to the best possible start’ . Kate asked several questions throughout the webinar, and as the attendees contributed lots of inspiring answers, we wanted to share some of these responses to get fellow geography teachers thinking about the transition […]
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 […]
The term ‘word gap’ is used to describe how children with a smaller vocabulary than others are disadvantaged in a range of ways. There are two main ways you can support your child and help them to build their vocabulary – by encouraging reading for pleasure, Here we share a range of ideas to help […]
The past few weeks have been hard. It’s hardly a new insight, but for teachers – a group that likes to be in control – this has been particularly tough! Working from home and trying to get the children we teach to learn virtually is a unique situation that creates the following areas of concern: […]
By Anne Watson Why am I talking about linear equations? Thinking about them takes me to several important hidden threads in school mathematics, wondering how learners might pull ideas together meaningfully. It is also helpful that there has been some research about ‘solving’ them. What is linear anyway? I started by searching textbooks and the […]
As you’re probably already aware, a new Ofsted Education Inspection Framework will come into force in September 2019. You can get an overview of the new Framework in our blog post ‘The new Ofsted Education Inspection Framework: What’s changed?’ We’ve taken a closer look at the Framework, alongside the new School Inspection Handbook that Ofsted inspectors will be using, and have pulled out […]
I have been floating the idea of treating key mathematics ideas as handrails for teachers and students. Recently several positive comments about this perspective have floated back to me, so I am sharing the idea with you. In mathematics, teaching key ideas could be handrails. Handrails can be held, used as guides or supports, or […]
Transition Days and reading In my previous blog I outlined our motivations for becoming a Reading School. We were clear why we wanted to do it and the impact we really hoped we would have. We just needed to think of a hook; a way to get the students to buy in to the new […]