Blog posts for ‘Literacy’ 
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What is the point of school?
Friday 23 November 2012
Phil Redmond’s opinion piece in The Independent earlier this month entitled the ‘The curriculum isn’t working’ made me think about two books that I have read in the last six months: Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google? by Ian Gilbert and What’s the point of school? by Guy Claxton. As their titles suggest, both move far beyond the diametrically opposed and ultimately unhelpful views of education often espoused by government and business namely that schooling should...
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Somebody said that it couldn't be done...
Friday 2 November 2012
Categories: Education, Literacy, Role Models
Professor John Gurdon this week was awarded the Nobel Prize for his services to cloning.
During the various interviews about his award he admitted to having framed one of his school reports from Eton which said he would never make a scientist. He had scored a mere 2 marks out of a possible 50 in a biology test and was ranked bottom of his year of 250 boys. So what does this say about school reports? There are so many examples from the famous and the not so famous of school reports which...
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International Day of the Girl
Thursday 11 October 2012
Categories: Girls' schools, Growing up, Literacy, Media Influence, Personal Safety, Teenagers
Today, Thursday 11th October 2012, is the very first International Day of the Girl, and it is most definitely worth celebrating.
How this came about was in part because of extensive lobbying of the United Nations by Plan UK (part of Plan International), the charity which we have been supporting in school over the past 2 years, and it makes complete sense to have a day that focuses solely on girls across the world. Although it is easy for us to forget this, girls across the world face...
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What the Dickens?
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Categories: Education, Literacy, Media Influence
On the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth, his biographer, Claire Tomalin, claims that, “Today’s children have very short attention spans because they are being raised on dreadful TV programmes”. There ARE some dreadful television programmes today, as there were in the 1970s as I grew up, but there are some brilliant ones too. I wonder how many young people saw the excellent adaptation of ‘Great Expectations’ at Christmas, and were encouraged to try reading the novel...
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The demise of teen reading in the UK?
Thursday 8 September 2011
Categories: Literacy, Media Influence, Teenagers
‘Children in the UK are significantly less likely to read for pleasure than in nations such as Kazakhstan, Albania, Indonesia and Peru according to international research’ announced The Telegraph this week. I wondered whether the nations named in the headline felt mildly offended that they had been chosen to highlight the comparison – the implication being that they are nations we assume not to be particularly literate.
The article bemoans the fact that ‘four in 10 teenagers in...
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Rudyard Kipling... doesn't he make cakes?
Monday 2 May 2011
Categories: Literacy, Media Influence, Parenting
A recent article in The Daily Mail Online reported the findings of a survey which demonstrated how few children aged 8 to 12 were familiar with the literary achievements of writers such as Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson. It bemoaned the fact that this survey added fuel to the argument that the current generation of children has impoverished reading habits.
As an English teacher for 30 years, no one needs to convince me of the...
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And they lived happily ever after...
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Categories: Literacy, Parenting, Role Models
When the handsome prince marries his blushing bride the fairytale ends with “and they lived happily ever after”. Easy isn’t it? Every little and not so little girl knows that all a girl has to do is find the man of her dreams and a blissful future is certain.
But some children are not going to grow up surrounded by such enchanting stories, according to a poll of 3000 parents carried out by TheBabyWebsite. Apparently a quarter of mothers don’t read some of the classic fairytales to...
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Reading is for pleasure not for duty...
Friday 25 March 2011
Categories: Literacy, Parenting, Role Models
It sounds such a good idea – Michael Gove’s pronouncement that every child should read 50 books a year, (Daily Telegraph 21/03/11) roughly one a week allowing a couple of weeks off for…good behaviour? But is it? And is it feasible?
I am not convinced that we either could or should try to make our children read a specific amount.
Firstly the “could” part: while reading is undoubtedly good for you this fact alone will not enable you magically to transform your child into an avid...
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The joys of blogging!
Wednesday 23 February 2011
Categories: Homework, Literacy, School curriculum
So Heathfields Primary School in Bolton have added blogging to their curriculum, even for five year olds. The initiative started in the snowy weather when, in an attempt to engage learners who were stuck at home, a blogging platform was set up on the school’s website and the children were asked to go into the back garden, measure the depth of the snow and report back. Children love to have a mission, and they enjoy communicating, especially with each other. This snowballed (!) and once...
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School libraries RIP? The debate begins . . .
Thursday 3 February 2011
Categories: Literacy, Technology & the Internet
For many, books are to be equated with learning: after all to be “well-read” is to be educated. Thus I am conscious that, for some, it is heresy for a headteacher to even consider the question. No true educationalist could consider a school without a library. However, at risk of blowing all my educational credentials in one go, I feel that someone has to be brave enough to ask the question.
The more I think about it, the more I find myself questioning why we are still spending money on...