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Wanna play fantasy GCSE Literature specifications?

Jun 01, 2014 | Category: English

The exam boards have played their hands and they're relying on jokers rather than aces. GCSE English literature is a race to the bottom: with the overwhelming concern seemingly being how to retain sch...

#GCSE English literature

Whose English literature is it anyway?

May 27, 2014 | Category: English

Have you heard? Education Secretary, Michael Gove has personally intervened to ban the only books worth teaching in the entire canon of English literature. Twentieth century American classics like To...

#Of Mice and Men #English literature #Michael Gove

The glamour of grammar: in context or not?

Feb 13, 2014 | Category: English

It's something of an understatement to say that glamour and grammar are not usually closely associated in many people's minds. One of the 100 words David Crystal uses to tell The Story of English is ‘...

#David Crystal #grammar #Alex Quigley #Education Endowment Foundation #Daisy Christodoulou #Debra Myhill

Is there a way to avoid teaching rubbish in English?

Feb 03, 2014 | Category: English

I’ve had an idea!For a while now I’ve been increasingly disgusted at the way English language has been dumbed down as a GCSE subject. Really, what is the point of asking pupils to analyse leaflets for...

#GCSE #English language #English literature #Bethan Marshall

Principled curriculum design: the English curriculum

Dec 16, 2013 | Category: English

The tragedy of life is that one can only understand life backwards, but one must live it forwards Søren Kierkegaard Back in March 2013, I wrote about the principles underlying my redesign of a Keys St...

#Dylan Wiliam #grammar #Alex Quigley #Joe Kirby #Daisy Christodoulou #Debra Myhill #Threshold concepts

The art of beautifully crafted sentences

Oct 17, 2013 | Category: English

I came across this post on Doug Lemov's blog earlier today and instantly decided to rewrite my Year 8 lesson to make use of the ideas within.The idea is, like all good ideas, a very simple one: that p...

#Slow Writing #Doug Lemov

Teaching sequence for developing independence Stage 2: Model

Jun 30, 2013 | Category: English

Over the past few years I've thought a lot about how and what we should teach. My journey has been long and painful. I used to evangelically promote the teaching of transferable '21st century skills'...

#Lee Donaghy #modelling #Bryan Reade #deconstruction #Marcus Sedgwick #nominalisation #Simon Scarrow

How knowledge is being detached from skills in English

Jun 18, 2013 | Category: English

I don't normally do this. In fact, I haven't put up a post by anyone else since last August. But in this case Joe Kirby has expressed my own thoughts so articulately that there seemed little point try...

#bloom's taxonomy #knowledge #skills #Shakespeare #Joe Kirby

Thinking like a writer

Jun 04, 2013 | Category: English

How do we get better at writing? By writing.The advice I always give to students to improve their writing is to write. Often. Everyday if possible. This might be a private diary entry, an Amazon revie...

#Phil Beadle #Tom Bennett #practice #Rober Bjork

Teacher talk: the missing link

May 18, 2013 | Category: English

Back in 2008 I was told by an Ofsted inspector that I talked too much. I had always prided myself on being considered an outstanding teacher, and was devastated to be told my lesson was "satisfactory...

#literacy #oracy #language