Following on from our blog post on the AQA GCSE examiner reports, we’ve taken a detailed look at the AQA A Level examiner reports for French, Spanish and German – here’s what we found out. Enthusiasm pays off… For the IRP (Individual Research Project) or photo activity, students who had chosen a topic they were […]
Read more
As a Speech and Language Therapist, I am constantly amazed by the number of skills a child needs to acquire in those all important early years. ‘Children can express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs. They use past, present and future forms accurately when talking about events that have happened or are to happen […]
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 […]
Read more
I was not surprised when I finished reading ‘Why Closing the Word Gap Matters: Oxford Language Report’ , but it still made for sombre reading. The report put in black and white what teachers already know: Most of the students we teach don’t have the vocabulary they need to fulfil their full potential at school. The word gap affects students’ wider life chances. After […]
Read more
By Jean Gross CBE, formerly the government’s Communication Champion for children and young people. Oxford University Press recently published the Oxford Language Report – a study into the effects of the word gap on children’s learning and what we can do to combat this. Here, Jean Gross CBE, offers some practical suggestions about how we […]
Read more By Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) Let’s start with what we know: language matters. There. That’s it. Vocabulary is a huge predictor of how far children from any background will succeed at school and beyond. The words they know will help them to read, understand, gain new […]
Read more The first Oxford Language Report finds evidence of a significant word gap in UK schools, a problem which is holding back children’s learning and which teachers believe is getting worse. Here Jane Harley, Strategy Director ED-UK at Oxford University Press, gives some background to the report and explains why closing the word gap matters. Why […]
Read moreJill 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 […]
Read morePunctuation does what it says on the tin – it punctuates. It ensures that our reader is clear about our intended meaning. Whilst it is important to use it correctly, I am a strong advocate of punctuation being employed carefully and thoughtfully in order to craft the writer’s intended meaning. After all, there is often […]
Read moreTwo words you never thought you would see in the same sentence: Grammar and Fun. But yet it is possible! Not only does it make it more engaging for the students, but it also helps to make it memorable. So where do we begin… 1) Start by doing your homework. What do they need to […]
Read more
