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 →
‘In this school, English is about…’
Practical tools for reflecting on the what, why and how of English teaching A friend’s nephew, when in Year 8, remarked to him: “I used to enjoy English, but all we do now is write PEE paragraphs.” If this is a pupil’s view (even an unfair one) of English in their school, then something has... Continue Reading →
Being ‘good at English’
Some possible 'qualities' of excellence in English There has been some discussion recently on blogs and Twitter about what it means to be ‘good at English’. Often, this is in the context of thinking about progression – from Key Stage 3 to 4, or from GCSE to A-Level, for example: what should we be aiming... Continue Reading →
A poetry lesson
An account of a poetry lesson, with some thoughts on efficiency, on how we treat texts and on knowledge. When I became an Advanced Skills Teacher, in 2002, the designation was still fairly new. There was quite an intensive appointment process involving a portfolio of documentary evidence, a set of testimonials and a visit by... Continue Reading →
Developing critical readers: preparing students for GCSE English Language reading papers
Thoughts on how students are taught to write critically about texts in exams This post was originally an article for NATE‘s Teaching English (Issue 12, Autumn 2016) Preparing for the new English GCSEs has compelled English departments to put their Key Stage 4 curriculum through yet another revision. For many, this has been taken as an opportunity […]
Objectives and purpose in English
Thoughts on learning objectives and on the way we frame learning in English
James Durran 