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The GCSE English "fiasco" – Why shouldn't all have prizes?

2012-09-02T13:30:28+01:00September 2nd, 2012|English, literacy|

Lots of folk have had lots to say about what went on behind the scenes at the various exam boards this summer and throughout it all I've largely kept my peace. Having absorbed the various arguments and counter arguments I feel I've arrived at some sort of opinion. In a nutshell, the issue seems to be that the prevailing (political?) opinion is that since the GCSE was first examined in 1988 (incidentally the year I took my exams) standards have steadily declined whilst grades have inexorably risen. For the past 24 years this orthodoxy has been if not unchallenged, at least [...]

Myths: what Ofsted want

2012-03-17T16:14:40+00:00March 17th, 2012|English, myths|

With galling hypocrisy and seemingly no sense of irony, Ofsted have released their latest subject report for English snappily titled, Moving English Forward. The report is a step by step guide on how to suck eggs. Apparently, teachers should concentrate on engendering a passion for learning instead of worrying about all the waggle of passing exams! Who knew? Apart from its obvious interest to English specialists, there's stuff in here that all teachers will benefit from knowing. Moving English forward View more documents from Ofsted Possibly the most immediately pertinent information for all teachers is contained in the section Some common myths [...]

When independent learning meets high stakes success

2012-03-10T22:09:40+00:00March 10th, 2012|assessment|

I've been thinking: our Year 11 students have just had their results back for the January sitting of the English Language GCSE exam. Currently English is a modular course, and this accounts for 40% of their final grade. 70% of our cohort have already got the marks for at least a C grade and now we are mobilisling a phenomenal battery of resources to ensure that this figure rises to at least 84% in order to equal last year's results. Obviously there is a certain amount of pride in our achievements, but make no mistake; this is high stakes stuff and [...]

Is grammar glamorous?

2015-01-26T12:38:54+00:00November 16th, 2011|English, literacy|

Well, no it's not is it. Grammar's that dull stuff what kids got taught in the 60s. And then enlightened educationalists decided it was unfashionable for children to know how to parse sentences and wotnot. Which leaves me part of a lost generation who trundled through our schooling without learning a blessed thing about this arcane and mysterious subject. And that neatly segues into the fact that I've recently been enjoying my favourite linguistic professor and all round eccentric, David Crystal's lovely new book, The Story of English in 100 Words. One of his chosen 100 is 'grammar'. You see, it [...]

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 [...]

Easy vs Hard

2011-09-16T18:39:45+01:00September 16th, 2011|Featured, learning|

We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. - JFK We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle A teachers' job is not to make work easy. It is to make it difficult. If you are not challenged, you do not make mistakes. If you do not make mistakes, feedback is useless. - John Hattie - Visible Learning Our attitude to effort is embedded in our language: easy does it, hard luck, easy on the eye, don't take it so hard. Why is it that [...]

Knowledge or skills?

2013-07-20T12:29:52+01:00September 11th, 2011|Featured|

Skills, knowledge, who cares?  I'm a huge fan of the implementation of Personal Learning and Thinking Skills as part of the English National Curriculum and feel confused and concerned about the current government's stance on knowledge & skills. see here for an example. Last week I had a really thought provoking conversation on this subject with Cristina Milos (@surreallyno) on Twitter which I think unpicks some of the issues: CM: When teenagers can't locate a country on the map, "facts" are suddenly important. Preaching "skills" before /or/ vs. "knowledge" is silly. Me: Is it? The fact that Poland is east of Germany tells us little, [...]

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