John Steinbeck · Michael Gove · Susan Godsland

Why Of Mice and Men?

In his recent call for children to read more books, the Education Secretary Michael Gove has questioned the dominance enjoyed by Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in many schools. I’m sure that a man of Michael Gove’s sophistication wasn’t for a moment suggesting that Steinbeck’s superbly constructed naturalistic novel Of Mice and Men doesn’t deserve a… Continue reading Why Of Mice and Men?

KIPP · Michael Gove · The Telegraph

Fifty books a year?

This morning’s Telegraph is reporting that Michael Gove expects that children aged as young as eleven should be reading fifty books a year. Graeme Paton thinks that Gove’s latest ruminations probably reflect his thinking on the tour he’s just made ‘of high-performing “charter schools” – state-funded institutions that are run free of Government interference –… Continue reading Fifty books a year?

Amanda Seyfried · Daily Telegraph · fairy tales · Gary Oldman.

If you go down to the woods today, your mother obviously hasn’t been telling you the right kinds of stories

There’s a story in the Telegraph this morning declaring that ‘politically correct’ parents who avoid telling their children folk tales are missing the chance ‘to teach children morality’. Some parents, it is alleged, are refusing to read or tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood because it involves a child wandering off alone into… Continue reading If you go down to the woods today, your mother obviously hasn’t been telling you the right kinds of stories

Richard Garner · Terry Jones · The Independent · Trouble on the Heath

And now for something completely… er, the same!

As Richard Garner reported in yesterday’s Independent, apparently, Terry Jones has just written Trouble on the Heath, a book for struggling readers. It’s part of the Quick Read series of books published for World Book Day, and, well intentioned though this is, it’s yet another example of someone who is very, very good at doing… Continue reading And now for something completely… er, the same!

Greg Brooks · simplified spelling

Greg Brooks: no change in the spelling system! Well, just a bit.

While I agree with Greg Brooks in his piece in the Guardian yesterday, where he argues that changing English spelling simply won’t work, the way in which his argument is couched seems to contradict the initial message. There are, as he points out, forty-four or so sounds – it depends to some extent on accent… Continue reading Greg Brooks: no change in the spelling system! Well, just a bit.