After the constant changes of the last two years, I know that many of us are excited about getting back to school and experiencing more ‘normal’ lessons. It is liberating to think that we (hopefully!) will be able to incorporate activities which were previously restricted, such as speaking. At the time of writing, it seems […]
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In this blog series, expert voices share their passion and commitment to vocabulary, and tell us how they are narrowing the word gap in their schools. Faculty Head Miranda McDade explains why there is a need to explicitly teach vocabulary alongside reading for pleasure. Read Miranda’s blog Assistant SENDCo, Lucy Bryant offers some practical, simple ways to support […]
Read more The vocabulary gap is perhaps more difficult to spot at Key Stage 3 than it is in the earlier years. By this stage, students will have 7 years of schooling under their belt, yet, when questioned directly, will struggle to define words they should be very familiar with by now. Exacerbated by Covid interruptions, teachers are faced […]
Read more Literacy is essential at all ages and stages of development. Working in a forward-thinking school, we are aiming to put literacy at the heart of the curriculum as it is the scaffold underpinning learning and understanding in all subjects. However, after a grilling from year 10, I found that teaching etymology wasn’t necessarily having the […]
Read more I am a teacher working in a school which is in a deprived area of Portsmouth, England. As Lead of Phonics and Reading, I am really keen to promote language skills within the school, as the children who start nursery and school in this area come with very limited language. As is the case for […]
Read more I was appointed as Language for Learning Lead at Icknield Community College in September 2016 with a broad rather vague brief. ICC is an Oxfordshire academy of 700 11-16yr olds on roll with lower than national average FSM, EAL and SEN cohorts. Building on my predecessor’s legacy, I continued to deliver a ‘word-of-the-week’ to tutors […]
Read more As the Trust Lead for English at Bridge Schools in Cornwall, we have identified the need to prioritise the teaching of vocabulary and work together to ensure that we make a concerted effort to close the word gap. We know that the research indicates that a child’s vocabulary can affect not only their academic progress […]
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Following months of screen gazing, limited interaction and working in isolation, our students are ready to come to life and to feel the buzz that our lively and dynamic MFL methodology brings. A foreign languages lesson is a social event where interaction and communication are essential, just what our young people need, having been starved […]
Read moreI hope that you had a really good break over the summer. The holidays are a welcome break from routine and pressure, aren’t they? For a number of reasons we decided not to go abroad this year, one being that I had just returned from two weeks in Germany with the UK German Connection . I was a […]
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