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Some ideas for how to get kids more interested in English.

How could you collaborate with other departments?

Books made into films about science, climate change, history, maths etc

Treasure hunt: letters/words

Murder mystery

Outside speakers, performers

History: world wars. battle re-enactment

Vocab in foreign languages

Rap off - teachers vs pupils?

Science - topical scientific issues

Persuasive writing: Dragons' Den; should Photoshop be banned in ads?

Independent leaning: gamified tasks, Tasks make points.

Vlogging/podcasting for oracy: speeches, dramatic monologues

Sources: real vs fake news - factcheck.org

Social media: tweets from celebs and asked pupils to correct SPAG.

Shakespearian insults

Bingo, spelling, song lyrics as sonnets

Get to know your kids and harness their passions eg they love football - a hook

Drama productions

Themes?

sense of place

wellbeing

empathy

climate change

inclusion

cancel culture

fake news

Black Lives Matter/Black History Month to debate diversity

International/global issues

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“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

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In pairs: List the ways in which we can prove that your department are promoting literacy. How could this be better?

CCF Standard 3: Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge
10. Every teacher can improve pupils’ literacy, including by explicitly teaching reading, writing and oral language skills specific to individual disciplines.

Teachers' Standards S3:
c) demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher's specialist subject.

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To share our experiences of and ideas for promoting literacy

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CERES seminar Professor David Waugh Words words words How can we address the word gap in schools-20210224_181127-Meeting Recording

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The Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys.

Girls were not mentioned in Friday's announcement, which means boys will be back at their desks next week after a one-month hiatus, while their sisters will still be stuck at home.

The Taliban education ministry said secondary school classes for boys in grades seven to 12 would resume on Saturday, the start of the Afghan week. "All male teachers and students should attend their educational institutions," the statement said. The future of girls and female teachers, stuck at home since the Taliban took control, was not addressed.

The edict makes Afghanistan the only country on earth to bar half its population from getting a secondary education.

In a further sign that the recently announced Taliban government is tightening restrictions on women, the former ministry of women's affairs building in Kabul has been handed over to the newly re-established ministry for the prevention of vice and promotion of virtue.

This was the group's feared enforcer in the 1990s, charged with beating women who violated bars on everything from going out in public without a male guardian to an obsessively prescriptive dress code that even forbade high heels.

The decision on education has worrying echoes of the tactics the Taliban used in the 1990s, when they last ruled Afghanistan, to bar girls from school without issuing a formal prohibition.

"Education and literacy are so strongly valued in Islam that the Taliban could not ban girls schools on Islamic grounds, so they always said they would open them when security improved. It never did. They never opened the schools," said Kate Clark, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, who worked in Afghanistan at the time.

That decision did not spell the end of education for women, with some small classes in homes, and schools run in provinces by charities, she said. However, it did turn the basic childhood right to seek an education into a high-stakes gamble.

"There was always the fear that they could be closed in a moment. Or that teachers would be beaten or detained. This happened. Teaching girls was risky, a brave act of resistance, but not impossible."

The Taliban appeared somewhat more open to women's education when they ordered all primary school students back to class, and said women could study for degrees, albeit in a strictly gender-segregated system that will dramatically lower the range and quality of women's options.

But if the high schools do not reopen for girls, the commitments to allow university education would become meaningless once the current cohort of students graduated.

The Taliban government is courting international recognition and funds, as Afghanistan hovers on the brink of economic collapse, and is aware that the international community is watching its treatment of women particularly closely.

Despite this, its leaders have already effectively barred the majority of Afghan women from work for the last month, calling their male colleagues back into offices but saying security conditions mean it is not safe for women.

That reason was used to prevent women from working for the entire five-year period the group controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s. Now, as then, only some women in the health and education sectors are back at their jobs.

However, the Taliban are now in charge of a capital, and a country, very different from the war-battered city they took over in 1996. They are likely to face strong pushback from women, including older students, and the many Afghan fathers and brothers who want the women in their families to get an education.

"The population they have given themselves the challenge of trying to rule has doubled in size and expectations have gone sky-high compared to the 1990s. We can anticipate there will be reactions and maybe the Taliban will be forced to backpedal or consider some differences," said Prof Michael Semple from the Mitchell Institute of Global Peace, Security and Justice.

"In some areas [in the 1990s] the Taliban simply tolerated girls' primary schools, and in other areas where people challenged them they did back down. In Jaghori girls went on hunger strike to defend their education, and they won. So the story does not end with these Taliban edicts."

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Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan

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The Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys. Girls were not mentioned in Friday's announcement, which means boys will be back at their desks next week after a one-month hiatus, while their sisters will still be stuck at home.

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National Literacy Trust report on literacy and Covid-19

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National Literacy Trust report on literacy and Covid-19

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9m people in UK with low literacy skills

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‘Every teacher is a teacher of English because every
teacher is a teacher in English’ (Holbrook, 1961, cited in Cambridge Assessment, 2013).

The 'personal growth' view of English has been superseded by the 'cultural analysis' view since the 1990s;

Is this the result of debates about a decline in standards? (Goodwin, 2006).

The National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE, 2012) headed a series of debates intended to redefine English.
Hoggart (1998, p.56, cited in Cambridge Assessment 201) advocates ‘critical literacy’ to avoid literacy becoming a way of 'subordinating
great numbers of people’ by making them susceptible to being ‘conned by mass persuaders’ (56).

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Britain should be proud of our standards of literacy.
The left side of the class must argue yes, the right side no.
Split into pairs with someone from the opposite side and argue your case.
Always back up your argument with evidence where possible.
5 minutes then 5 minute plenary,

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How has English been reframed over the years and why?
What are the most recent debates about English teaching?
What are the debates surrounding literacy now?

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What does the attached image imply to you?

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What does the attached image imply to you?

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There are no universal definitions and standards of literacy. Unless otherwise specified, all rates are based on the most common definition: The ability to read and write at a specified age.
(Source: Indexmundi)

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Facts and statistics about the Literacy of United Kingdom. Updated as of 2014.

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9m people in UK with low literacy skills

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9m people in UK with low literacy skills

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Who is to blame? 'Progressive education'? (Smithers, 2016, cited in Cole, 2016).

seven million adults are functionally illiterate (annual United

Nations survey, cited on bbc.co.uk)

one in six people has a literacy level below that expected of an 11-year-old

84% of 11-year-olds achieve the expected levels for reading

75% of 11-year-olds achieve the expected levels for writing. (National Literacy Trust)

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The term ‘digital literacy’ relates to:

the functional skills of knowing about and using digital technology effectively

the ability to analyse and evaluate digital information

knowing how to act sensibly, safely and appropriately online

understanding how, when, why and with whom to use technology (Cambridge Assessment, 2013)

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Ofsted examples of good practice in schools

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Examples of good practice in schools inspected by Ofsted.

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BBC Schools. 2013. Literacy and young people . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/pshe_and_citizenship/pdf/literacy.pdf.
Cambridge Assessment. 2013. What is literacy? An investigation into definitions of English as a subject and the relationship between English, literacy and ‘being literate’. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/images/130433-what-is-literacy-an-investigation-into-definitions-of-english-as-a-subject-and-the-relationship-between-english-literacy-and-being-literate-.pdf.
Cole, B. 2016. Young people in England have 'lowest literacy levels' in developed world says OECD. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/young-people-england-have-lowest-literacy-levels-developed-world-says-oecd-1540711.
•Jones, R. 2012. Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction. 1st Edition. London: Routledge

•Leander, D, 2009. cited in Carrington and Robinson (ed). Digital Literacies: Social Learning and Classroom Practices. London: Sage

•Page, R. 2014. Researching Language and Social Media: A Student Guide. Student Edition. London: Routledge.
Senior, S. 2008. Getting the Buggers to Read 2nd Edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic.