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English language

Is there a way to avoid teaching rubbish in English?

2014-05-27T09:52:15+01:00February 3rd, 2014|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 RNLI or websites about skateboarding? What’s the point of committing so much time and effort to teaching kids how to write like tabloid journalists? I can see an argument for teaching English as a set of ‘functional skills’ but the Language GCSE isn’t even that. Leaflet analysis and persuasive writing are pointless as well as crass. The exam on which thousands of teachers waste [...]

Controlled assessment and why I hate it

2011-10-28T11:15:46+01:00October 28th, 2011|assessment|

Yesterday I took a break from ploughing through my Year 10 controlled assessments to exhort myself to "bloody well get on with it" and stop moaning about my work load. Marking is virtuous. You know it's important so you get with it. Plus, it produces a warm satisfying glow when you finally get the bottom of the stack and scribble your last improvement target. Except, I got to the bottom of my pile of summatively assessed controlled assessments and thought, what was the point of that? I now have a list of marks for each of my students. Some [...]

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