This special anniversary year offers unique opportunities for introducing your students to the world and work of William Shakespeare. Finding new and inspiring ways of bringing Shakespeare’s plays to life is essential to engaging children in the classroom. With this in mind, we’ve asked some of our authors and experts to share their first encounters […]
Read more
‘Boldness be my friend’ Cymbeline Recently I was asked to undertake some work with students who were studying Shakespeare for a Literature essay. I asked for a copy of their key scenes and was handed a wad of photocopies. This took me straight back to my early teaching career in the 1990s. I’m all for […]
Read moreHoD: Now, what about these KS3 exams? How are we going to assess them? I thought we’d use levels and sub levels. Colleague: Right but levels are supposed to be a thing of the past. HoD: Um, maybe, but Ofsted have told schools to continue using levels until the gap is filled and there are […]
Read moreEveryone talks about literacy across the curriculum, whole school literacy and literacy co-ordinators but, like differentiation, when you actually ask what this means no-one really provides an answer. I think this results, in part, from the confusion over Literacy (with a capital L) and English. In the primary sector anything that resembles English is referred […]
Read moreAfter more than 20 years in the secondary sector, for the last two years I have been working voluntarily for a couple of hours a week with a group of more able Year 6 students at a primary school. To say that this has been an eye-opener is an understatement. I am astonished at what […]
Read moreTextbooks – the wheel already invented I recently responded to a tweet asking if anyone knew of any decent textbooks to use at KS3. When I tweeted ‘Ignite English from OUP’, one reply seemed surprised that textbooks meeting the new curriculum requirements existed. Ignite English was written to coincide with and support the new curriculum […]
Read moreOn the 5th March, it is World Book Day. I’m waiting for my son to come home with the usual, “We can dress up as a character from a book.” Most teachers I know will already be filled with dread and searching the charity shops for something they can use to make Skellig’s wings or […]
Read moreThe traditional whiteboard (or even blackboard) used to take centre stage in the classroom. It has been pushed to one side (where most pupils can’t see), reduced in size or eliminated altogether. The other day I had a conversation with a talented young teacher who declared that she was going to request a traditional whiteboard […]
Read moreHow many English departments have had the time to scrutinize the new specifications or to think about what they really mean for our teaching, both at KS4 and, perhaps even more importantly, at KS3? Let’s start with some of the basics of the new exam requirements: 100% exam 2 exams, each of approximately two hours […]
Read moreIt is 2015. This is it – the year in which we have to start teaching the new GCSEs. Exam only. Linear. Untiered. No coursework. No controlled assessments. How many English teachers out there are rejoicing secretly (or perhaps openly) at the prospect of an end to controlled assessments? When I was a Leader of […]
Read more
