English in the News
Below is a selection of articles which are archived online and may be of interest to NATE members. If you know of others please let us know. Keep up to date with our Twitter feed, too.
- Should schools teach The Simpsons? - BBC Radio, Wednesday July 21, 2010
More than 400 people have signed a petition calling for a Somerset school to stop teaching the US cartoon series The Simpsons in lessons. [clip from Today programme]
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Primary school 'street' talk breeding illiteracy, claims thinktank - The Guardian, Monday July 19, 2010
Primary school teachers are breeding illiteracy among children by letting them speak "street" in the classroom, a rightwing thinktank claims today.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Illiteracy is bad for us – so why don't we do something about it? - Daily Telegraph, Monday July 19, 2010
The best way to teach reading and writing must be settled once and for all, says Boris Johnson.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Sats are too 'unreliable and stressful', say unions - BBC, Friday July 16, 2010
National tests - Sats - for 11-year-olds in England have too high a margin of error to be used to compare schools in league tables, teachers' unions say.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Angry parents accuse school of 'dumbing down' English by showing The Simpsons in class - Daily Mail, Friday July 16, 2010
A father has started a petition against 'dumbing down' after his daughter's school ditched literary classics in favour of The Simpsons.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Carol Ann Duffy unveils new World Cup poem - The Guardian, Saturday July 10, 2010
Poet laureate makes a footballer her narrator in The Shirt, a new piece timed to coincide with the World Cup 2010 finalLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Jacqueline Wilson: the grande dame of girlhood - The Guardian, Saturday July 10, 2010
Jacqueline Wilson is adored by her readers for her understanding of the problems they face. But, she wonders, are children today too used to being the centre of attentionLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - English spelling 'too difficult for children' - Daily Telegraph, Thursday July 8, 2010
The complexity of the English spelling system is to blame for soaring levels of illiteracy among teenagers, according to a researcher.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Warning as quarter of schools boycott Sats - Daily Telegraph, Tuesday July 6, 2010
The Coalition today risked a fresh clash with teachers by vowing to press ahead with Sats tests next year.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Pupils must learn about Miss Havisham, says minister - The Guardian, Thursday July 1, 2010
Nick Gibb says children are leaving school without a sufficient knowledge of factsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - BT boss attacks 'illiterate' job applicants - Daily Telegraph, Sunday June 27, 2010
The head of BT has branded the British education system a “disgrace” after claiming the company has been forced to reject thousands of job applications for poor spelling and grammar.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Royal approval: How Michael Gove is taking lessons from the Prince of Wales - The Independent, Thursday June 24, 2010
"Anything that looks at improving teachers' subject knowledge has to be a good idea," says Ian McNeilly of the National Association for the Teaching of English. "After all, it's what we do for a living, all day, every day – although, of course, the difference is to do it without that backing and wealth."Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Sir Tom Stoppard: reading undermined by technology - Daily Telegraph, Monday June 21, 2010
Children’s love of reading risks being “swept away” by new technology in the home, according to Sir Tom Stoppard.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Workmen write 'shool' on road - Daily Telegraph, Friday June 18, 2010
Council workmen were left red-faced after misspelling the word "school".
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - 'A poet of great eminence': Geoffrey Hill's landslide victory restores prestige to Oxford professor - The Guardian, Friday June 18, 2010
Triumph of 78-year-old will help dispel memory of last year's scandal-hit contestLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Exams for boys, exams for girls - Times Educational Supplement, Friday June 18, 2010
AQA’s new key stage 4 qualifications in English, maths and science could be available for teaching as soon as September 2011 with coursework options for girls and more traditional exams aimed at boys.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - GCSE pupils to study words of Charlotte Church - Daily Telegraph, Tuesday June 15, 2010
School pupils will study the words of the singer and television presenter Charlotte Church as part of their GCSE English course
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Queen's birthday honours list: the arts - The Guardian, Saturday June 12, 2010
Trio of Britain's best-known poets get gongs
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - English Examinations: Have they got easier? - Daily Telegraph, Friday June 11, 2010
After studying GCSE and A-level papers going back 30 years, Sameer Rahim argues that the subject has become less stretching - and that we should care enough about students to let them fail
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Should theatre critics be more diverse? - The Guardian, Wednesday June 9, 2010
A Royal Shakespeare Company arts journalist bursary scheme is attempting to widen the pool of people writing about theatre – not just audiencesLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here