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.
- £2bn schools initiatives a 'waste of time' - The Guardian, Monday October 22, 2007
Initiatives to help improve England's worst-performing schools are a "costly waste of time", Manchester University researchers said today. ... They found that government initiatives, such as the £575m Leadership Incentive Grant, the Secondary Strategy that cost £170m and the Excellence in Cities project costing £1.7bn, had not improved results.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - £27m scheme to give free books to all under-fives - The Guardian, Monday July 25, 2005
Every child up to the age of four is to get a free bag of books under a £27m government scheme designed to promote reading.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Zadie is a set work - Times Educational Supplement, Friday April 7, 2006
English literature A-level students are to be required to study modern authors such as Zadie Smith, Nick Hornby or Will Self under recommendations to change exam syllabuses.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Yours for £7 online, another student's GCSE coursework - The Guardian, Tuesday November 22, 2005
A report today warns of a "new generation of risks" of GCSE and A-level coursework plagiarism on the internet. Education correspondent Polly Curtis gets online to find what's on offer Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - You'll miss us if we perish, warn subject associations - Times Educational Supplement, Thursday January 19, 2012
Loss of funds and lack of support leave them fighting for survival. They see themselves as the Big Society in action - teachers working together to help each other improve standards. NATE Director Ian McNeilly says: "We were the Big Society before David Cameron was a twinkle in pater's eye."
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - You can’t be serious about Harry Potter! - Daily Telegraph, Friday May 18, 2012
JK Rowling’s books about the Hogwarts wizard have been the subject of academic debate this week. Why?
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - You can't dance in front of an interactive button - The Guardian, Tuesday October 28, 2008
Phil Beadle on the demise of the whiteboard
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Yes they get good results but by God are they bored - The Guardian, Friday August 26, 2005
Schools that stick to the limited syllabus are failing to educate pupils: There is almost no scope, either in the exam or the classroom, for children to explore their own thoughts or responses. "At GCSE our children go into exams incredibly well-prepared," [an English teacher] says, "but by God are they bored." ...There are primaries where children preparing for Sats tests at 11 are made to work out three stock stories and six characters in the year before the exam. The schools' logic is that this saves children valuable thinking time during the test. The consequence is that a test intended to measure and encourage creativity and storytelling does precisely the opposite.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here
- Writing wrongs - The Guardian, Monday September 8, 2008
A professor of phonetics wants us to abandon our old-fashioned spelling rules, but our loopy orthography is glorious
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Writing tests to be dropped from Sats - Times Educational Supplement, Friday June 24, 2011
Bew review urges Government to place assessment in teachers’ handsLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Writers should comply with schools vetting, says children's laureate - The Guardian, Thursday July 16, 2009
Anthony Browne takes conciliatory line following calls to boycott school visits over police checksLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Writers furious at plan to axe free books scheme for children - The Guardian, Saturday December 25, 2010
Philip Pullman, Carol Ann Duffy, Ian McEwan and Sir Andrew Motion round on decision to slash £13m government grant to the Booktrust charityLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Writer Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84 - BBC, Thursday April 12, 2007
One of the outstanding figures of modern US literature, Kurt Vonnegut, has died aged 84 in New York.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Writer John Fowles dies aged 79 - BBC, Monday November 7, 2005
The French Lieutenant's Woman author John Fowles has died aged 79.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Write it don't type it if you want knowledge to stick - Daily Telegraph, Thursday January 20, 2011
Children and students who write by hand learn better than those who type, a study shows.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Write Away Finalists 2005 - Times Educational Supplement, Friday June 17, 2005
The Write Away competition triumphantly reaches its eighth year in 2005, with another 10,000 thought-provoking entries from students aged seven to 14.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Worn-out words - The Guardian, Thursday June 30, 2011
Last year Ledbury poetry festival asked poets to name their most hated words. For this year's festival they've asked for the expressions that have become such cliches that they have lost all meaning.
Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - World Book Night to open with huge public reading in London - The Guardian, Wednesday February 23, 2011
Unprecedented Trafalgar Square event will feature star authors including Margaret Atwood and be hosted by Graham NortonLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - World Book Night giveaway: a night of Good Omens or Misery? - The Guardian, Monday October 24, 2011
Curl up with Pratchett, Gaiman, King or Austen for one night of fiction, when one million books will be distributed for free – from a list of 25 – for second World Book Night on 23 April 2012Link 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