Whole-class reading: an example lesson and a menu of approaches

  See also: Whole-class reading: a planning tool See also: Whole-class reading: another example lesson See also: Challenging responses: designing a successful teacher-led reading lesson In primary schools recently, there has been a lot of interest in ways to approach whole-class reading lessons. The imperative to raise standards in reading is leading many to question the dominance of... Continue Reading →

Avoiding a ‘literacy dip’ in Year 7

Some questions for secondary teachers, English teams and school leaders, which may be helpful Many secondary schools have concerns about how to maintain progress in the core area of literacy from Year 6 to Year 7, perceiving that many students do not make sufficiently-strong progress in Year 7, or that they can even regress in... Continue Reading →

The importance of ‘extended writing’

Some thoughts on task-setting and assessment in English, especially at Key Stage 3 In a well-planned Key Stage 3 course on Of Mice and Men, pupils will be gripped by and immersed in Steinbeck’s novel, will enter imaginatively into the world of the story, will explore its context and significance, will investigate ways in which... Continue Reading →

From page to screen and back again: teaching Shakespeare through film and film through Shakespeare

This blog post was originally an article, written in 2003 with Craig Morrison for the NATE magazine English, Drama, Media, when we both taught at Parkside Community College in Cambridge.  The practice it describes has since been developed further, but it is still all just as applicable now as it was fourteen years ago, as... Continue Reading →

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