Low standards in education. Terry Leahy · Tesco

Standards in education ‘woefully low’, says Tesco boss Terry Leahy

John

The Guardian and The Independent are today both reporting Terry Leahy’s attack on Gordon Brown’s ‘woefully low’ standards in education.It’s the usual complaint – huge amounts of money spent for a very poor return – though for the UK’s largest private employer (Tesco) to voice such an outspoken attack is highly significant.Leahy claims that standards… Continue reading Standards in education ‘woefully low’, says Tesco boss Terry Leahy

Albert Jack · Nursery rhymes · picture books · PM blog

Of nursery rhymes and picture books

John1 Comment

I had to confess to some surprise the other day listening to the P.M. programme on Radio 4. The programme included a piece in which people were interviewed and asked to recite ‘Jack and Jill’ and other, what I thought were well known, nursery rhymes. What did I know? Hardly anyone who was interviewed could!One… Continue reading Of nursery rhymes and picture books

David Crystal's blog · English Language Day · The English Language Project · Winchester

English Language Day

John

David Crystal is proposing that we give every language its ‘special day’. As he reminds us, we already have two: the European Day of Languages on 26th September and the World Mother-Tongue day on 21st February.Crystal’s posting on his blog has drawn attention to work done by the Winchester English Language Project, which will celebrate… Continue reading English Language Day

falling standards · professor Bernard Lamb

Lamb’s linguistic lament

John

In a report due to be published next month in the Queen’s English Society’s journal Quest, professor Bernard Lamb of Imperial College London claims that his British undergraduates made ‘three times as many grammatical, punctuation and spelling mistakes’ as his overseas students.The figures Lamb refers to are taken from a class of twenty-eight final-year undergraduates… Continue reading Lamb’s linguistic lament

Alan Gibbons · library closures · Wirral

Wirral council rescinds library closures

John

On June 12th I posted on Alan Gibbons’ ‘Campaign for the Book‘. Here’s the latest from Alan on attempts to close libraries. Looks like Alan and his fellow campaigners have won a victory … for the time being at least! Well done to them! Below is a portion of Alan’s campaign email. You can read… Continue reading Wirral council rescinds library closures

Evidence-based practice

Personal beliefs or evidence-based practice?

John6 Comments

When I come into contact with practising teachers and teaching assistants on the Sounds-Write literacy training courses, I am constantly coming up against people who think that their personal opinion, based on nothing but their practice and beliefs, has the same validity as research in the field of teaching reading and spelling.According to Caroline Cox*,… Continue reading Personal beliefs or evidence-based practice?

Literacy standards · OECD

‘Literacy Standards in the UK – A Reality Check’ by David Philpot

John1 Comment

Since the UN started large scale surveys of adult literacy in the developed world in the mid 90’s, politicians in all those countries that have English as their mother tongue have been at a loss to explain their appalling results. In English speaking countries around half of all adults are not sufficiently literate to cope… Continue reading ‘Literacy Standards in the UK – A Reality Check’ by David Philpot

handwriting · The Guardian · Umberto Eco

Umberto echoes my fondness for the fountain pen.

John

What I remember Umberto Eco for best – and, my goodness, I enjoyed The Name of the Rose – is a long-forgotten piece he wrote on the Bond novels. On reading said piece, I was amazed to see that, apart from The Spy Who Loved Me, all the others conformed to a strict structural pattern. I’d… Continue reading Umberto echoes my fondness for the fountain pen.

Michael Rosen · SATs · The Guardian

The end of SATs?

John3 Comments

Polly Curtis reported in Friday’s Guardian that 10,000 people have signed a petition to scrap SATs.Independent and objective testing is an appropriate way of seeking to find out if pupils are successfully remembering and understanding what society wants them to be taught. Unfortunately there is little evidence that the Government’s SATs papers actually do this… Continue reading The end of SATs?