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 urged to use word power - BBC, Wednesday June 22, 2005
A scheme which helps children grow in confidence by putting books at the centre of life has been launched. Books, Reading and Writing (Braw) has been set up to showcase Scottish children's authors and illustrators. Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children unable to talk properly because of working parents - Daily Telegraph, Friday January 1, 2010
Children from middle-class families are not learning to talk properly because they no longer interact with their working parents, according to the Government's new 'communication champion'.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children unable to speak properly when they start nursery school - Daily Telegraph, Sunday November 14, 2010
Young children unable to speak and listen properly when they start nursery school because of continuous noise and poor conversation at home, according to a new Ofstead report.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children to read by six - Tories - BBC, Sunday November 18, 2007
The Conservatives have set out plans which they say will ensure children can read by the age of six.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children to be given reading 'MOT' at six - Daily Telegraph, Friday December 17, 2010
Pupils will be given an ''MOT'' to ensure they can read properly at the age of six, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has said.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - 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 - Children still delight in playground games - The Guardian, Tuesday March 15, 2011
Two-year research project shows youngsters incorporate computer games and TV shows into breaktime activitiesLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children speaking English in minority in 1,500 schools - Daily Telegraph, Sunday April 11, 2010
Figures show that London, frequently the arrival point for immigrants into the country, has been the hardest hit. Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children promised 'high culture' - BBC, Wednesday February 13, 2008
Schoolchildren in England are being promised access to high-quality cultural activities and the chance to pursue creative careers.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children no longer need facts because they can look them up on smartphone, claim teachers - Daily Telegraph, Wednesday April 4, 2012
The article also suggests: 'A new-style English curriculum may also lead to the introduction of distinct lessons in grammar and more rigorous reading lists covering Homer, Sophocles and Shakespeare amid fears too many pupils are “limited to a diet of John Steinbeck”.' Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children lack ability for Dickens, says biographer Tomalin - BBC, Sunday February 5, 2012
Leading Charles Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin has said children are not being taught to read with the attention span necessary to appreciate the novelist's works.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children hit by 'weak' teaching - BBC, Tuesday December 9, 2003
"Weak" teaching is restricting efforts to improve primary school pupils' reading and writing performances, a report suggests.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children being failed by progressive teaching, say Tories - The Guardian, Friday May 9, 2008
Generations of children have been let down by so-called progressive education policies which have taught skills and "empathy" instead of bodies of knowledge, the shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, said yesterday.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children Are Learning Grammar Again - But Not The Quiz Kind
- The Independent, Saturday November 1, 2003
Grammar is even more "in fashion" than Philip Hensher thinks ("The rules of grammar are back in fashion", 27 November). Thanks to the National Literacy Strategy and the KS3 English strand, children now learn about grammar at school - but not Hensher's kind of grammar.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children 'should read classics' - BBC, Monday January 30, 2006
Children should be made to read classic literature by Dickens, Shakespeare and Joyce, according to authors such as JK Rowling and Philip Pullman.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children 'should read 50 books a year', says Gove - Daily Telegraph, Tuesday March 22, 2011
Children as young as 11 should be expected to read 50 books a year as part of a national drive to improve literacy standards, according to Michael Gove.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children 'no longer reading for pleasure' - Daily Telegraph, Tuesday June 9, 2009
Children's love of books is being ruined by the demands of school tests, according to an award-winning author Frank Cottrell Boyce.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children 'need 100 key words' to read - The Guardian, Friday December 9, 2005
Children need to learn just 100 words and 61 phonic skills to read the English language - not the 150 and 108 respectively suggested by the national literacy strategy, researchers from Warwick University said today. [The article lists 'The crucial 100 words']Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children 'dropping English literature in schools' - Daily Telegraph, Saturday November 19, 2011
Children risk growing up with a poor understanding of literature and history as rising numbers of pupils ditch traditional academic disciplines at secondary school, it is claimed today by a charity set up by the Prince of Wales.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Cheesy poems get a new audience - The Guardian, Monday March 7, 2011
McGonagall and McIntyre, two of Scotland's 'persistent bad poets', are remembered with new public recitalsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here