Tag Archives: English

Poetry By Heart Scotland: calling S4-S6 teachers and students⤴

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Poetry By Heart Scotland is a competition from the Scottish Poetry Library that gives students in S4-6 opportunities to learn by heart and perform poems from our specially curated database. Students compete at school, regional and national level, culminating in a final event in Edinburgh where they have the chance to perform in front of […]

Review: Languagenut, a Language Subscription Site with a Difference⤴

from @ My Languages


Created in 2009, Languagenut promotes a fun, simple and engaging approach to language learning for KS2 and KS3 pupils. Although Languagenut has its HQ in the UK, it now has users all over the world in 32 countries, from Puerto Rico and the US to Asia and it has adapted its platform to meet the curriculum needs in those different countries.

The range of languages offered is truly global but also supports heritage languages including Gaelic and Te Reo Maori. This is complemented by a unique range of EAL resources which supports the children in the UK who do not speak English as their first language.

The MFL and EAL resources rely on simple games, engaging students in simple, fun and effective learning activities. Students explore a set of words or phrases through the “presentation” feature, and then reinforce the language working across the key skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. All resources are organised by topics and graded by difficulty, with each topic also offering a song and a story to practise key structures in a different way. Each topic can also be assessed via the platform.

Teachers can also track and reward pupils’ progress through the activities whether they are completed in class or independently at home. All progress data can be exported into an Excel spreadsheet and progress reports including graphs can be produced easily. Reward certificates can also be generated automatically.

In addition, the “My content” allows teachers to use Languagenut’s framework of presentations, games and assessments for their own words and phrases. Sound and pictures can also be uploaded and the newly created exercises are automatically trackable by teachers as soon as they are published.
All exercises can also be assigned to specific groups of pupils or individuals, which can help differentiation for class work and homework.

Healthy competition is also encouraged via the lingualympics board, which displays the sign-in name of the top 20 students and 20 schools worldwide.

I was lucky enough to be taken on a guided tour of this excellent platform by the delightful Liz Brewer and I would advise to get in touch if you are considering languagenut as it does offer a lot more than your usual language subscription site…

Review: Languagenut, a Language Subscription Site with a Difference⤴

from @ My Languages


Created in 2009, Languagenut promotes a fun, simple and engaging approach to language learning for KS2 and KS3 pupils. Although Languagenut has its HQ in the UK, it now has users all over the world in 32 countries, from Puerto Rico and the US to Asia and it has adapted its platform to meet the curriculum needs in those different countries.

The range of languages offered is truly global but also supports heritage languages including Gaelic and Te Reo Maori. This is complemented by a unique range of EAL resources which supports the children in the UK who do not speak English as their first language.

The MFL and EAL resources rely on simple games, engaging students in simple, fun and effective learning activities. Students explore a set of words or phrases through the “presentation” feature, and then reinforce the language working across the key skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. All resources are organised by topics and graded by difficulty, with each topic also offering a song and a story to practise key structures in a different way. Each topic can also be assessed via the platform.

Teachers can also track and reward pupils’ progress through the activities whether they are completed in class or independently at home. All progress data can be exported into an Excel spreadsheet and progress reports including graphs can be produced easily. Reward certificates can also be generated automatically.

In addition, the “My content” allows teachers to use Languagenut’s framework of presentations, games and assessments for their own words and phrases. Sound and pictures can also be uploaded and the newly created exercises are automatically trackable by teachers as soon as they are published.
All exercises can also be assigned to specific groups of pupils or individuals, which can help differentiation for class work and homework.

Healthy competition is also encouraged via the lingualympics board, which displays the sign-in name of the top 20 students and 20 schools worldwide.

I was lucky enough to be taken on a guided tour of this excellent platform by the delightful Liz Brewer and I would advise to get in touch if you are considering languagenut as it does offer a lot more than your usual language subscription site…

Using a short, silent film to stimulate independent learning, discussion and writing⤴

from

I was really delighted to be asked by Pedagoo to explain how I would use this short film to enliven learning in my classroom. In this post I am mindful of how to harness the abilities of our visual learners. By using this visual text my aim is to generate extended thinking and learning and […]

Boarding Pass – @FernwoodDT⤴

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I saw this idea on Twitter originally and like most of our resources it was amended to our students. The concept is simple the ‘Boarding Pass’ is given to students as they enter the classroom and are instructed to fill in their name and ‘One fact from last lesson’ the teacher then goes through some […]

Highers? The best we can do?⤴

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It’s Easter Monday, (Bank holiday in the UK) and it’s 8:47 PM. My step-daughter is holed up in her room. Listening to music? Watching YouTube vloggers? Reading? Watching Games of Thrones via illegal feed? None of the above. She’s studying. This time for English Higher. Saturday it was for Art, Friday for RMPS.  Wednesday night she was up until 2:45 AM working on her Graphic Communication project which was due in. (She was up against a wholly unrealistic time scale, as the previous teacher ‘misunderstood’ what was required for the exam. I wonder if they were up at 2:45 and then ready for school next morning??) To be fair to her she didn’t start work until 10:00 PM on the Wednesday night.

 

Would you like to guess why she began work so late? She was organising a music concert at her school along with other S5’s. This wasn’t part of her course: It was over and above. It was her and her friends taking a leading role in school life. The Curriculum for Excellence says this is a thing to aspire to for schools and pupils, yet due to some inadequate work from a teacher, her reward for this was working until 2:45 AM.

 

Well at least it’s the holiday now. Except it’s not quite the holidays, as my step-daughter is attending revision classes in the school on different days of the holiday. These are being provided by teachers who are clearly committed to their pupils getting the best grades they can in their exams, so committed in fact that they are ignoring national guidelines on holidays for pupils and teachers to deliver them.

 

Perhaps she’s having to cram as she’s not done enough work previously? Maybe she slacks off and works hard in the ‘exam season’. I can tell you she’s not angelic. She leaves the toilet lid up, doesn’t wash her food pots and has even been known not to replace the butter in the butter in the butter dish! She does work very hard at her studies however, pushes herself hard, as well as trying to develop other areas of her life (like attending animation classes, organising concerts for the school, volunteering in a hospice shop when she can).

 

Our ‘new’ Curriculum for Excellence (published in 2004) has strong ideals and ethics in it. It aims to create “successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.” I’m not sure how these fit with holiday revision classes, weekends where homework is all that gets done in a household, time taken off school to complete ‘vital’ homework tasks. To my mind they don’t. The conditions of work my step-daughter is working to are likely to turn our young people away from education for a lengthy period of time. I dare not think too long about the effects this amount of work and pressure has on her (and her many friends) mental health. This was not the aim of the 2002 consultation paper on education, yet this is where we are.

 

Charlie Love wrote a great blog post about National 4 exams and the effect that working Nat 4 courses had on pupils, it’s well worth a read. It is not just Highers, it’s the National 4 and 5 exams which don’t appear to be working also.

A quick google for problems with Highers brings up a few news reports but nothing too recent. It seems that the political will to create a system where our young succeed and lead balanced, healthy lives is not there. When I did my ‘A’ levels (in England), I (like everyone else) took two years of study to pass them. It was a wonderful time of my life, some hard work, some enjoyment of a different side of school life, even some maturing! The key was the time afforded to work, think and develop inside the school week. I had at least one 1hr 15 period of study time each day. Sometimes more. My step-daughter gets nothing, it’s wall to wall teaching.. Yet, apparently this amount of teaching time isn’t enough, she still has to work so much ‘extra’ time in the evenings and holidays.

 

I’d be delighted to hear from Angela Constance and Iain Gray about pupils being overworked in order to pass National Exams. I’d also be interested to hear of anyone else’s experiences. Please tweet me @robertd1981 or e-mail me at robertdrummond@gmail.com if you wish to contact me, but not leave a public comment.

 

This isn’t progress. This isn’t creating an education system better than the oft-mocked English system I described earlier. This isn’t good enough.