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.
- Children think Fagin is Man U player - Daily Telegraph, Monday January 18, 2010
Many school pupils are ignorant of classic children's literature, according to a survey of 100 pupils, aged between eight and 10, by the supermarket chain Asda, which this week has started selling a collection of 20 children's classics, from Jane Eyre and Black Beauty to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Gruffalo at £3.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Phonics: lost in translation - The Guardian, Tuesday January 19, 2010
Synthetic phonics saw spectacular results in Scotland, but questions are now being asked about its use in England: are some children missing out?Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Text messages 'help improve children's reading ability' - Daily Telegraph, Tuesday January 19, 2010
Sending text messages can help a child's reading ability and learning, rather than hindering it as previously thought, according to new findings.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Phone texting 'helps pupils to spell' - BBC, Wednesday January 20, 2010
Children who regularly use the abbreviated language of text messages are actually improving their ability to spell correctly, research suggests.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - 'Oral sex' definition prompts dictionary ban in US schools - The Guardian, Monday January 25, 2010
A parent's complaint over a 'sexually graphic' definition has seen dictionaries removed from southern Californian schoolsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Parents back threatened Sats boycott - The Guardian, Tuesday January 26, 2010
Parents' groups support teachers who argue that the tests are not in the interests of children or schoolsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Teachers to be balloted over Sats boycott - Daily Telegraph, Tuesday January 26, 2010
Teaching unions over Sats tests today after announcing they are to ballot members on a boycott of Sats tests, putting them on a collision course with Schools Secretary Ed Balls.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - JD Salinger dies, aged 91 - The Guardian, Thursday January 28, 2010
Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger has died of natural causes at his home in New HampshireLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - At five, a third of poor boys cannot write their names, report says - The Guardian, Thursday January 28, 2010
Almost three-quarters of boys on free school meals are failing to keep pace with their peers, official figures showLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Poet Christopher Reid talks about winning the Costa book of the year - The Guardian, Friday January 29, 2010
Christopher Reid on how he turned the death of his wife into a prize-winning poetry collectionLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Poetic defiance and Romantic ideals - The Guardian, Saturday January 30, 2010
Does the Guardian know what it is doing in publishing the Romantic poets booklets? Have you considered that they might find their way into schools, and breed a generation of subversive and revolutionary young people?Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Fears over primary school pupils' communication skills - BBC, Friday February 5, 2010
A significant minority of children leave primary school without having their communication difficulties picked up and addressed, a charity claims.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Cambridge to study computer games - BBC, Friday February 5, 2010
Computer games and comics are to be analysed alongside the time-honoured classics of children's literature at a new Cambridge University centre.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - How Tarell Alvin McCraney took Hamlet back to school - The Guardian, Friday February 5, 2010
Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney survived an abusive childhood to become one of American theatre's brightest young talents. He tells Nosheen Iqbal why getting a bunch of fidgety 11-year-olds to be excited by Shakespeare is his toughest challenge yet – but one he couldn't resistLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Ban on Valentine's Day cards at school - BBC, Thursday February 11, 2010
A primary school in Weston-super-Mare has been criticised for banning Valentine cards to save pupils the "emotional trauma" of being rejected.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Valentine's Day poetry lights up Edinburgh Castle rock - BBC, Saturday February 13, 2010
A line of romantic poetry is to be projected onto the rock beneath Edinburgh Castle for Valentine's Day.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Poor children a year behind in language skills - The Guardian, Monday February 15, 2010
Reading to children and taking them to libraries can limit effects of disadvantage, Sutton Trust study showsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Fewer than half of children read for leisure or walk to school - Daily Telegraph, Wednesday February 17, 2010
Less than half of children aged nine to 14 read fiction more than once a month, a study by the National Literacy Trust has found.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Contest for Oxford poetry professor begins again - The Guardian, Thursday February 18, 2010
Geoffrey Hill and Anne Stevenson are among the names being suggested, as hunt for a successor to Ruth Padel beginsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Pupils fall below writing targets - BBC, Tuesday February 23, 2010
Two-thirds of 13-year-olds are failing to reach expected standards of writing, according to a major survey released by the Scottish government.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here