Guidance, ideas and examples to support schools in developing their curriculum, pedagogy, enrichment and support for more able learners, within a whole-school context of cognitively challenging learning for all. Includes ideas to support curriculum development, and practical examples, resources and ideas to try in the classroom. Popular topics include: curriculum development, enrichment, independent learning, questioning, oracy, resilience, aspirations, assessment, feedback, metacognition, and critical thinking.
Posted By Anjali Patel, Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE),
04 June 2025
Updated: 04 June 2025
Anjali Patel, Lead Advisory Teacher, Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) is an independent UK charity, and English Association, dedicated to raising the literacy achievement of children by putting quality literature at the heart of all learning.
It is a charity with a national and international reputation for providing excellent literacy training and resources for primary schools, based on extensive research and best practice.
CLPE’s core beliefs and mission align with those of NACE in that we believe it is every child’s right to achieve and to be given the opportunities and experiences necessary to thrive.
What is Power of Reading?
CLPE’s research around the importance of using quality texts as the basis for English planning and quality teaching, and to provide reflective professional development, is embodied in our flagship training programme: the Power of Reading.
Built on 50 years of CLPE’s research, the Power of Reading explores the impact high-quality literature has on children’s engagement and attainment as readers and the link between reading and children’s writing development, supported by creative teaching approaches to develop a whole-school curriculum, which fosters a love of reading and writing to raise achievement in literacy.
In short, we recommend the kinds of books that provide challenge and opportunity for sustained shared study in whole-class English lessons with detailed teaching sequences that enable teachers across all primary Key Stages to work in depth with the best children’s literature being published today.
When ‘broad and balanced’ became overloaded and surface-level
So why do we believe should Power of Reading be at the heart of any English curriculum?
At CLPE, our school members are integral to our work. We benefit from thousands of schools and teachers being part of that CLPE community and this means we can draw on our relationship with and research in these schools to design professional development programmes and teaching resources that remain relevant.
The Power of Reading programme is refined each year, informed by the evaluations of participants and to take into account new research or statutory guidance or developments from the DfE and Ofsted and to support our schools to interpret and implement policy and guidance with confidence and integrity to what we know works.
In recent years, the issues raised with us by teachers and leaders on our INSETs and training sessions has been overridingly related to concerns around understanding how to use language to communicate meaning and for effect, both orally and in writing; and in editing, refining and response to writing. Perhaps their views resonate with you?
“Children are not motivated to edit their work beyond proofreading for spelling or other ‘surface features’.”
“There is so much curriculum content, we are teaching too much at a surface level rather than teaching at depth, particularly in writing.”
“The EYFS curriculum is too constrained for periods of sustained shared thinking to happen. Reduced time is spent at play, with more carpet time ‘sitting and listening’.”
“Responses to texts don’t have depth, children aren’t able to go below the surface and be reflective and evaluative.”
“Some set structures and routines, e.g. ‘we have to do writing every day’, ‘we have to do grammar on a Wednesday’ are barriers to developing effective practice, particularly in writing.”
“Not enough time and expertise in how to respond to writing as readers (teachers and children) – text references are features-based, not drawing on language and composition for effect.”
Providing depth to close the disadvantage gap
It is interesting to explore these commonly shared views through the lens of inclusion and to make the connection between being ‘more able’ and the kinds of experiences that lead to this opportunity to thrive and become highly literate.
Children from privileged backgrounds are more likely to experience the kinds of book ownership and book sharing experiences that support them to deepen their reader response and understanding of the world so that – in school – they can begin to explore how authors, illustrators or poets can achieve this response and how they themselves can make meaning for a reader in their own writing.
Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more reliant on classroom routines and resources to be able to access and make connections with high-quality, representative children’s literature; to engage in daily book sharing experiences; develop deeper reader response through sustained book talk; and, as Frank Smith (1982) put it, ‘join the literacy club’ (1).
If teachers are saying they are constrained by an overloaded curriculum or lack opportunity to develop subject knowledge through quality professional development (2), the English curriculum will become increasingly disjointed and ‘surface’ level with a disadvantage gap that grows ever wider. When what all teachers want is to give every child the opportunity to work at greater depth whatever their starting point.
The last thing we want is for only privileged children to be afforded the benefits of challenge and so we must provide an equitable curriculum that enables all children to be motivated to make and create meaning with rich texts through non-reductive teaching approaches and with expert teachers.
And this is why we believe at CLPE that the Power of Reading is as necessary today as it was 20 years ago, if not more so.
The impact of a reading-rich English curriculum
The Power of Reading programme stems from CLPE’s seminal research publication The Reader in the Writer (3). This research aimed to investigate how children's writing might be influenced by studying challenging literary texts in the classroom.
The findings from that research serve as the backbone to CLPE’s training programme and they are at the heart of the Power of Reading teaching sequences that support our members to develop an evidence-led literacy curriculum in their own classrooms.
After 20 years, and with thousands of teachers trained across the UK and internationally, the programme continues to evidence impact on teachers and children whose schools have participated in the training. All the evidence we collect to measure impact continues to teach us how powerful reading can be for both children’s academic attainment and wider learning and development.
An independent evaluation by Leeds Trinity University reported on the impact of using Power of Reading in 11 Bradford schools from Autumn 2018 to Spring 2019 (4). The report shows that children in these schools made accelerated progress and the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils was significantly narrowed.
More recently, in evaluating the impact of Power of Reading on children in the Early Years (5), the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers was smaller in research schools compared to all pupils within the local area. And when we compared the engagement and attainment of project children at the start and end of their Reception year, the findings were significant with double the number of children working at age-related expectations in Language and Literacy Areas of Learning.
Key recommendations for a challenging English curriculum
So what can we learn from this research to support classroom practice?
If we can create an English curriculum that is evidenced to close the disadvantage gap through exposure to and engagement in high-quality texts leading to increased world and vocabulary knowledge and writing outcomes in which children make deliberate choices for their own readers, we are creating a curriculum in which all children have access to experiences that increase their self-efficacy and the chance to be more able.
Our Associate Schools – in some of the most disadvantaged communities in England – observe children working at and achieving greater depth and this is articulated beautifully in a recent case study from the team at Miriam Lord Community Primary School in Bradford.
The Power of Reading practice and provision at Miriam Lord – and the outcomes observed – connect deeply with NACE’s core principles and can be framed as key recommendations for a challenging English curriculum:
Ensure teachers have strong subject knowledge of high-quality children’s literature so they can give children access to a range of literary forms within and across all year groups.
“[The children] can talk with a greater depth of knowledge of authors… so their ability to compare themes, characters, likes, dislikes is so much better than it ever was and then that communicates into the writing.”
Choose books in which they see their own and other realities represented so that you can build authentic reader and writer identities in all children which allow them to develop and demonstrate their abilities.
“The children need to see themselves in books – or at least an element of their lives – in books. They need access to books that they can connect to and that will draw them in and I think the book choices we give them here give them a bigger hook, certainly than the book choices I had when I was growing up.”
Use a range of non-reductive, social and creative teaching approaches to deepen children’s understanding and broaden their experiences, including drama, artwork and storytelling.
“It provides lots of opportunities for immersion and exploration which is really important for a number of children that come to our school because they’ve got deprivation of experience so they don’t get to have those exciting days out or lots of real-world experiences so the books give them that and then they get to participate in role play and activities which enthuse them which then feeds into their writing process.”
Follow an authentic writing process in which children are making meaning from well-crafted written language, then engage in making conscious choices with their own writing. Focus not on the ‘what’ but the ‘why’ when making such choices, within a community of readers and writers.
“It puts children’s enjoyment at the centre of everything. It’s not focused solely on the final written output and the success criteria which was the case for a number of years and it made the whole writing process quite onerous and quite boring for children.”
Make explicit the connections children can make between growing literacy knowledge and skills and in wider curriculum work so that children have opportunity to thrive across a range of contexts and throughout the curriculum.
“It has wider themes threaded through it like geography, history, citizenship so it’s not just English as a stand-alone subject.”
Plus: save the date! On Friday 3rd October NACE and CLPE are collaborating on a “member meetup” event (free for staff at NACE member schools) exploring approaches to sustain pleasure and challenge in reading and literacy across Key Stages 2 and 3. Details coming soon to the NACE community calendar.
Bob Cox, author of the Opening Doors books, shares some key principles and strategies for a challenging primary English curriculum – based on the latest addition to the series.
Every school’s intent is to be ambitious for its pupils. In the privileged role I have as educationist, consultant and writer, I so often admire displays, website quotes, inspirational messages and exhortations to pitch high and achieve dreams; yet I also realise how complex this can be to apply in the classroom on a day-to-day basis.
Primary teachers are expected to be experts in many subjects, so detailed support is needed in specific domains. Along with my team of ‘opening doors’ consultants, and with case studies being explored constantly with the schools in our network, we have been able to condense and express into a new publication some of the key principles and strategies needed to develop high-quality, ambitious primary English from which every pupil can benefit. This means that pupils who are already advanced and need regular immersion in literature, language and ideas are provided for in rich and creative ways: not by discrete divisions from others or by labelling, but through a challenge culture which encourages and enables all pupils to aspire and reach further.
It's not just a question of talking about risk-taking, the unexpected, the wonder of top-class thinking skills, philosophy and quirky writing; it’s using the resources and strategies to make this all happen. How many keynote speeches have I attended over the years receiving deserved rounds of applause for charisma and style and social justice – but giving little indication for teachers who are not subject experts of where to actually begin.
I’ve seen schools hugely idealistic, wonderfully caring and totally committed, wandering in the dark for pathways to subject-specific depth. It’s all too easy then to adopt a package, a linear routeway, a stepped process which often tends to leave high performance learners revisiting concepts previously mastered. This can leave teachers de-skilled in the longer term too, as the delivery stages can dominate thinking and planning more than creative ideas. The latter needs the constant fuel of new challenging texts, quirky possibilities and curiosity. That starts with the teacher’s autonomy and nurturing of ambition. I am seeing this happen across our network and it’s very exciting!
In short, personalising approaches in any way can becomes harder if teaching to the middle rather than beyond the top takes a cultural grip. If models of excellence and ambition start to be squeezed, teachers themselves may lose sight of their own potential and ‘age-related’ notions become a goal rather than a starting point.
Our new book ‘Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English’ provides the guide that schools have been asking for to confront that key issue of HOW ambition expresses itself in English, with a mixture of research, case studies, ideas and examples of pupils’ writing.
Essentially, high performance learners will benefit from being in a school where challenge for everyone is a priority!
Five key principles for achieving this:
Pitch lessons beyond the level of the most advanced pupil.
Scaffold and intervene as appropriate for others.
Link quality texts from the past to the present and across the globe.
Exploit the potential of literature, including poetry, to give scope for new learning and deep knowledge acquisition as well as general knowledge.
Plan for sequencing and progression of knowledge via concepts in English.
Five key strategies for successful implementation:
Access support is needed continually, even for advanced pupils; this could include chunking stages; visual literacy; music; drama; questioning as a culture.
Productive group work and structured classroom talk provides the explorations of style and language needed for in-depth comprehension of quality texts.
Diversify the question layout to meet the needs of the pupils.
Develop quality writing via taster drafts which can link into sustained writing.
Zoom in to teach the specifics of English; zoom out to offer linked-in whole-text reading.
This is just a snapshot of the exciting work which we facilitate and activate. It’s very fulfilling. Our work is particularly in tune with attempts to inject high aspiration by matching intent to resources and approaches which will lift pupils’ standards and confidence.
Visit our website to read more about the five resource books in the series and the new book which will become the lead one, as it puts into words what schools have already been achieving to inspire so many more to follow. It’s time to make your primary English that much more exciting!
“Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English: Pitching high and including all” is available to order now from Amazon or Crown House Publishing.
NACE members can benefit from a 20% discount from all purchases from the Crown House Publishing website. Log in to our member offers page for details.
Zoe Enser, author of the new book Bringing Forth the Bard, shares eight key steps to help your students get to grips with (and enjoy!) the symbolic, allusive, musical, motif-packed language of Shakespeare.
The language of Shakespeare is perhaps one of the greatest barriers to most readers unfamiliar with its style, allusions and patterns. Shakespeare’s language can be something of a leveller as it doesn’t necessarily matter how proficient you are at reading generally; all students (and indeed many adults) will stumble across his words and need to deploy a different approach to reading than they are used to.
With so many finding the language problematic, there is a temptation to strip some of the complexity away; to focus instead on summaries or modern adaptations. There is, though, much to be gained by examining his words as they appear, much as you would when exploring a poem with your class.
Getting it can be really satisfying, and a key light-bulb moment for me at school was seeing how unpicking meaning could be looked at like a problem to be solved, much like solving equations in maths or finding the intricate pieces of a jigsaw. Most importantly perhaps is that his use of poetry, imagery and musicality frequently stays with us, and lines from Shakespeare that linger in our mind and our everyday language remain due to their crafting. We want to allow students to have that opportunity too.
Here are eight steps to bring Shakespeare’s language to life in your own classroom:
1. Begin by giving students an overview of the plot, characters and themes. Good quality performance, coupled with summary and questioning, will mean students arrive at language analysis ready to see how it relates to these bigger ideas. Audio readings of the plays can also be useful here to allow them to hear the language spoken and to model fluency.
2. Reassure students they won’t get it all immediately. Explain that the joy in studying Shakespeare’s language comes from the gradual understanding we gain and how it enriches our understanding, which is a process: one which even those familiar with his work will continue to go through. It is a process where we layer understanding, deepening each time we revisit it. If students have been used to exploring simpler texts this might be a challenge at first to consider this different approach, but model this for them, demonstrating how you can return to the same quote or extract again and again to delve deeper each time.
3. Look at short extracts and quotes from across a play or a range of texts to examine patterns and connections. Linger on individual words and then trace them as they are used elsewhere so students can notice where these links are and hypothesise as to why.
4. Use freely available searches to explore the frequency and location of key words and phrases. For example, a search on Open-Source Shakespeare reveals there are 41 direct references to ‘blood’ or ‘bloody’ in the play Macbeth, some of which are clustered within a few lines. This provides an opportunity to explore why this is the case and what Shakespeare was doing with these language choices. Equally, looking for references to the sun in Romeo and Juliet reveals 17 instances, and if then cross-referenced with light it brings forth a further 34 references, suggesting that there is a motif running through the text which demands further attention. Allowing students to explore this trail in their discussions and consider the prevalence of some words over others can reveal much about the themes Shakespeare was trying to convey too. For example, simply looking at the light and dark references in Romeo and Juliet enables students to see the binaries he has woven into the play to mirror the idea of conflict.
5. Discuss the imagery Shakespeare is trying to create with his language via pictures, selecting those which are most appropriate to convey his choices at different points. Thinking about how different audiences may respond to these is also a useful way to examine alternative interpretations of a single word, line or idea. This can also support learners with different needs as they have visual images to link to ideas, especially abstract ones, repeated throughout the text. This will provide them with something more concrete to link to the text and, as images are repeated throughout the narrative, can act as support for the working memory and enhance fluency of retrieval as they recognise the recurring images visually. This can be particularly useful for EAL students, supporting them to follow the plot and explore the patterns that emerge.
6. Teach aspects of metre (such as iambic and trochaic pentameter), ensuring students have lots of opportunities to hear the language spoken aloud so they can appreciate the musicality of the language and choice of form. Using methods such as walking the text, whereby students physically walk around the room whilst reading the text and responding to the punctuation, can be a powerful way to convey how a character feels at any given point. Lots of phrases, short clauses, or single syllable words can change the pace of the reading and we should model this and give students the opportunity to examine how this may then impact on performance. Long, languid sentences can create a different performance, and where the punctuation has finally landed in his work can reveal a lot about how a character or scene has been read. Try different ways of reading a single line to illustrate why we place emphasis on certain words and pauses at different points.
7. Read the text aloud together. As well as modelling reading for students, employing practices such as choral reading (where the class all read the text aloud together with you) or echo reading (where they repeat lines back) can be another way in which we remove the barriers the language can create. Students build confidence over time as the language becomes more familiar but also they do not feel so exposed as they are reading with the group, and not alone.
8. Let students play with and manipulate the language so they are familiar with it, and it doesn’t become a block to their interaction with the plays. Pre-teach the vocabulary, letting students consider words in isolation and explore quotes so that they don’t become overwhelmed at trying to interpret them. Even translating short phrases and passages can provide a useful coding activity which can support later analysis.
Zoe Enser was a classroom teacher for 20 years, during which time she was also a head of English and a senior leader with a responsibility for staff development and school improvement. This blog post is an excerpt from her latest book, Bringing Forth the Bard (Crown House Publishing). NACE members can benefit from a 20% discount on this and all purchases from the Crown House Publishing website; for details log in to our member offers page.
New research from ImpactEd has found that pupils who have high confidence in and enjoyment of reading have higher wellbeing and lower anxiety than their peers. In this blog post, the ImpactEd team share insights from the research, and suggestions as to how schools and families can support children’s reading and mental health.
At ImpactEd we recently released a piece of research (in collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, TutorMate and Place2Be), which looked at the relationship between reading and wellbeing for young people across England.
In an educational landscape recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, with ongoing concerns about unequal loss of learning due to school closures and concerns for children’s post-pandemic mental health, we believe this research, which explores the relationships between pupils’ reading experiences, attitudes and behaviours and their mental wellbeing, is hugely timely and important.
We surveyed almost 30,000 pupils and findings show that pupils who scored a five (the highest score) in confidence in reading had wellbeing levels that were over 30% higher, and anxiety levels that were over 20% lower than pupils who scored a one (the lowest score). Similarly, pupils who enjoyed reading very much had wellbeing levels that were over 6% higher than those who didn’t enjoy reading at all.
We spoke to partners who contributed to this research to get their perspectives on the implications for children, schools and families, and they shared some valuable suggestions on what educators, parents and carers can do to support children’s reading and mental health.
1. Read little and often
To support children to develop their reading, and thus support their emotional wellbeing, Emma Bell, Executive Director at Innovations for Learning UK, suggests a focus on reading “little and often”, rather than making reading a chore. In the video below she shares that reading can often be integrated into things families are already doing, such as reading recipes, road signs or subtitles on the telly. She notes that these small activities can have a big impact, and create a positive reading culture.
2. Talk to older children about their reading
Our research also revealed that pupils frequently want support with their reading, regardless of their age. While many pupils mentioned reading directly with family members (“I would like my family to read with me, especially my little sister”) older pupils’ suggestions for support included parents and carers asking them questions about what they are reading, and giving or suggesting books that they might enjoy (“Ask me questions about what I’m reading so I can answer and express my feelings on the book”).
Jonathan Douglas, CEO of the National Literacy Trust, references these comments when he shares in the video below that “no child is too old to be engaged” in reading. He refers to suggestions mentioned in the research, noting that a great way to support children’s education and wellbeing is by initiating conversations with them about their reading.
3. Use stories and characters to open up discussions about mental health
Some more suggestions for supporting children’s reading and mental wellbeing are given by Dr Julia Clements, Principal Educational Psychologist at Place2Be in the video below. She suggests that when reading with children, adults could discuss any challenges that characters in the book are going through and open up a conversation about what they can do when faced with difficult situations in life. This could support children with their understanding of and resilience towards challenging situations.
Read more...
For more findings from our research into reading and wellbeing, and more suggestions on how to support children’s reading at school and at home, the full report is available here.
Bob Cox, author of the Opening Doors books, reflects on the importance of high-quality, challenging texts for all pupils, and key factors for the successful implementation of a challenging English curriculum.
As the author of the Opening Doors series of books for English at KS1, 2 and 3, I’ve had the pleasure of developing a UK-wide network of schools and organisations committed to providing an enriched diet of English where every pupil has the opportunity to relish new challenges. This is particularly pertinent for those advanced pupils whose whole morale can be threatened by revisiting concepts they have already mastered; but it is just as vital for pupils whose reading scores may be low.
We are seeing the high-pitch approaches, encouraged by so many educationists, being turned into reality in the day-to-day classroom by teachers using top-quality texts, poetry, quirky short extracts and contemporary children’s literature with a ‘meaty’ depth. The sheer scope of the language and style is a springboard to genuine comprehension journeys with the teacher’s questioning, knowledge transmission and fascinating oracy being delivered through an inspiring range of methodology. Such is the scope for learning in challenging texts, that the knowledge acquired in the reading can then be applied to the writing.
For example, just read a few lines of Dionne Brand’s Wind:
I pulled a hummingbird out of the sky one day
but let it go
I heard a song and carried it with me
On my cotton streamers
I dropped it on an ocean and lifted up a wave
With my bare hands…
Now see what Faith Gorman, a pupil at Red Barn Primary, has written:
I came in the night,
Luminous black,
Dashing, darting,
I made the street lamps flicker and jerk as I swept by,
I saw the foxes and owls capture their prey…
You can well imagine the range of teaching methodology, word power building and drafting that will have gone on in the process, but without Dionne Brand’s image-making and without overtly exploring the language and techniques, the crafting of the writing would have been less imaginative. There would also have been less knowledge about language acquired: personification, rhythm and meaning; specific vocabulary choices.
Using complex texts and developing the teaching strategies to go with them is key: “start kids out with complex texts that they cannot read successfully; then teach them to read those texts well.” – Timothy Shanahan, February 2017
In my work many years ago as an LA consultant and a freelance deliverer of provision for able pupils – then called ‘gifted and talented’ – there was huge interest from schools in the potential behind the devising of a top-class curriculum; but there were huge concerns about pupils with low reading scores being left behind. That made a lot of sense. In addition, there were concerns that pupils with high learning potential actually disliked risk-taking so much that moving them on to high-level texts and questions was not easy. Schools still report that pupils with very high potential can get upset about an incorrect answer, whereas other pupils can be so used to difficulties that they find it normal to ask their way out of them. [For more on this, take a look at NACE’s work on perfectionism in partnership with York St John University.]
Clearly, challenge for every pupil must become a habit, a norm, an expectation – and then the pupils demand it themselves instead of being wary! I’ve seen this happen in many schools. Resilience grows and healthy ambition prospers. Getting unstuck becomes fascinating, not threatening.
So, when I came to write books for English, pitched high, often asking more of pupils in terms of depth of thinking and breadth of quality reading, I was determined to ensure inclusive routes to excellence which would support equality of opportunity and social justice, and recognising the entitlement to high-class literature – from past to present and across the globe – for all learners, but pitched beyond where the most advanced pupil might be.
These are some key ways in which we have supported schools which are following the Opening Doors approach, and schools have fed back to us as a community growing in knowledge together.
So, what allows those doors to open?
A whole-school action plan is needed to design an English curriculum which progresses from challenge to challenge, concept to concept, and through transition into KS3.
Access strategies should flow through the curriculum: scaffolding, responding to need, clarifying, exemplifying and adapting. Pitch high but offer support when needed.
See the sample units under free resources on my website for examples of our radial questioning layouts, which end the notion of very able pupils treading water on easy questions. We move them straight to high-level challenges if they are ready.
Opening Doors schools build in whole-text reading in rich and immersive ways, with plenty of choice. Alongside this, extracts provide a focus for language study, depth and comprehension explorations; link reading provides range and diversity in an ethos of skilled facilitation and expectation.
Teachers develop their own reading and expertise, offering that to pupils as the most wonderful opening of doors to general knowledge, increased confidence and articulation of ideas that there can be.
So, the quality of the text explored deepens learning immeasurably, and that new learning is applied in ambitious writing – but it’s the teacher who makes the difference! Without you, it’s much harder for this to happen.
Reference
Brand, Dionne (2006; originally published 1979), Earth Magic. Toronto: Kids Can Press Ltd.
Full unit features in: Cox, Bob (2019), Opening Doors to a Richer English Curriculum, ages 6-9. Carmarthenshire: Crown House.
Find out more…
To learn more about the Opening Doors approach, explore Bob Cox’s website. Plus: Bob online on 13 October 2022 for an exclusive live webinar for NACE members – register here.
If you would like to buy the Opening Doors books for your school, remember that NACE members can currently benefit from a 20% discount on all purchases from the Crown House Publishing website. For details of this and all current member discounts, visit our member offers page (login required).
Posted By Ilona Bushell,
28 March 2022
Updated: 22 March 2022
Ilona Bushell, Assistant Editor at The Day
Telling the truth about the world we share has become one of the heroic endeavours of the age amidst an ever-changing digital tsunami of information. Effectively embedding journalism in your school is vital to equip young citizens with the skills needed to develop a healthy worldview, engage in a democratic society and tackle the world’s biggest challenges, leading the way to a brighter future.
There is no doubt that news literacy helps develop skills that are valuable right across the curriculum – and prepares children for their adult life. As these young people become voters, tax-payers and earners, they will have the basic tools to navigate the noise, confusion and fog of reality.
Here at the online newspaper for schools, The Day, we call the regular consumption of news a “real-world curriculum”. In February 2022 we launched The Global Young Journalist Awards (GYJA), a free competition open to all under 18s around the world. We aim to inspire young people to build a better world through storytelling, and the ambition is for GYJA to become the leading award for youth journalism.
What, why, and why now?
Written entries are welcome, but the awards are open to work in any medium – including video, photo, audio, graphic or podcast – opening up the floor to different student abilities and areas of interest. The aim is to showcase a variety of voices and encourage young people to report on what truly matters to them.
American actor and comedian Tina Fey, who will be among the panel of GYJA judges, said, “There has never been a more important time to get young people involved in truth-seeking. It is vital for our future that journalists investigate without fear or favour, and this competition is an excellent way of inspiring children to get involved.”
The judging panel also includes TV broadcaster Ayo Akinwolere, the BBC’s gender and identity correspondent Megha Mohan, the FT’s top data journalism developer Ændra Rininsland, and Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch.
Indian computer scientist and educational theorist Sugata Mitra sees the awards as an opportunity to see glimpses of unexplored minds: “I have found children to be good at making up things. They can assemble all sorts of information into stories that are, at worst, fascinating and, at best, brutally honest. A journalist that can think like a nine-year-old will be astonishing… Can nine-year-olds think like a journalist?”
How are the awards aligned to school curricula?
There is an explosion of great reporting today on topics relevant to every area of the school curriculum. The award categories listed below are designed to fit within students’ areas of study and contribute to a rich real-world curriculum. Through their storytelling, entrants can build on important skills including communication, research, fact-checking, confidence, literacy, oracy, individuality and empathy.
GYJA categories:
1. Campaigning journalist of the year
2. Interviewer of the year
3. International journalist of the year
4. Political journalist of the year
5. Mental health journalist of the year
6. Environment journalist of the year
7. Science & technology journalist of the year
8. Race & gender journalist of the year
9. Sports journalist of the year
10. Climate journalist of the year (primary only)
How can schools get involved?
Teachers can download the Awards entry pack at www.theday.co.uk/gyja2022. The entry pack and website include a host of free resources for students. There are top tips from sponsors and judges, prompt ideas, best practice examples and guidance on the six journalistic formats they can use.
What’s in store for the winners?
Winners will be announced at a live virtual ceremony in June. Award winners will have their words, video, photo, graphic or podcast published on The Day’s website and be given the chance to connect with role models from the world of media and current affairs.
Winners will be invited to join The Day’s Student Advisory Board for a year, while winners and runners-up will be offered a day’s work experience in a national newsroom and receive trophies.
Competition sponsors include The Fairtrade Foundation, The Edge Foundation, Oddizzi, Brainwaves, National Literacy Trust and Hello World.
The Day is a digital newspaper for use in schools and colleges. It has a daily average circulation of 378,000 students, the largest readership among those aged 18 and under of any news title. Over 1,300 schools are subscribers. NACE members can benefit from a 20% discount on subscriptions to The Day; for details of this and all NACE member offers, log in and visit our member offers page.
Alison Tarrant, Chief Executive, School Library Association (SLA)
I struggle with addressing the importance of diversity accurately, but fundamentally I think Ruth Bader Ginsberg sums it up best:
“When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.”
Every child should read about how other children live and about alternative experiences, and I don’t think we should limit this to a certain percentage or context. Until children can pick up a book and not be surprised that a character looks like them (or doesn’t look like them), we have work to do. It’s vital that the resources children engage with are noticeably representative (there are many studies which show even animals are more likely to be male in books, so the argument that animals or monsters are equally representative doesn’t work). For more on this, watch the SLA's webinar "Representation for All" – available for NACE members until the end of January 2021.
If we look at BookTrust Represents' interim research and CLPE’s Reflecting Realities survey of ethnic representation in UK children’s literature, both report some positive progress in recent years:
3% growth in the number of authors and illustrators of colour published in the UK in the last two years.
7% of the children’s books published in the UK over the last three years feature characters of colour.
This is progress, but the pace of change doesn’t yet seem to match the level of the discussion which has taken place. I’m hopeful that the new initiatives launched in light of the events of this year will lead to a significant increase on these figures next year. In the meantime, how can schools ensure their resources are diverse, representative and inclusive?
Key questions to consider
For many schools, the topic of diversity and inclusion prompted self-evaluation this year. An audit of the curriculum and/or resources may have taken place, though this can be done in many different ways. Here are some core questions to ask when thinking about diversity within your resources:
How many of your resources are written by ethnic minorities or people seen less in the public eye? This may include consideration for UK-based ethnic minorities, authors with disabilities, authors from working-class backgrounds.
How many of the resources reflect stories from these groups? When thinking about this, consideration should also be given to how those characters are represented; if every story which includes a black character shows them suffering abuse, it embeds a story overall. Are these stories “issues” stories, or simply great stories with authentic characters? Are they suitable for discovery alone, or do they need a conversation and some scaffolding beforehand? (There was a very interesting and upsetting discussion around the impact of “Of Mice and Men” on pupils and teachers recently – you can read it about it in this Twitter thread.)
How often do you create displays around these characters, authors, books? Celebrate these authors alongside their mainstream colleagues, rather than as part of Black History Month or awareness days, as consistently “including” them in this way may actually send a message of “othering” as opposed to inclusion.
Are your resources providing a broad range of experiences and perspectives? Match the resources to the cohort, absolutely, but include resources for wider awareness as well. For example, resources about travellers are important for the travelling community; but they’re also important for representing an alternative narrative to the stereotype which is so easily absorbed, so should also be available in schools without those cohorts.
Is your school collection keeping pace? Ensuring representation and inclusion doesn’t happen by accident. It requires an in-depth knowledge of the school’s resource collection, it can be supported or hindered by the collection policy, and it does require funding. There are equity issues with schools which are not funding their resources sufficiently; these schools are often pushed to get resources from donations or charity shops, and while there may be an occasional bargain to be found, these should not form the basis of a collection. Publishers have been increasingly proactive in paying attention to these issues, and are constantly scanning and reacting to the world around them. The books produced in the last year or two will take a long time to filter through to donations (most often as children grow up or out of books), so if schools rely on donations/second-hand purchases, this delays the impact of changes and leaves some children missing out.
Note on diversity in resource formats
Diversity should also be reflected in the type of resource encountered. Throughout this blog I’ve used the word resources instead of “book” – this is not just because schools should be considering all their resources, but also because “book” can be taken to have a very narrow meaning. Resources, in this blog, means fiction books, information books, e-books, audio books, graphic novels, poetry books, wordless books, picture books and much more. Teachers are incredibly good at selecting the right resource for the right piece of work, but we also need to be mindful of the overall messaging when all those resources are put together, and those with responsibility for the school library need to make sure that representation, inclusion, and importantly choice, are available to all pupils.
Further reading and resources
Free webinar: "Representation for All". The SLA has written multiple articles on this topic and provided a free webinar for SLA members. The webinar recording is available for NACE members until the end of January 2021. Watch the webinar here.
Share your views: UK School Library Survey 2020. The SLA is partnering with Softlink on a survey into key issues for school libraries in 2020; and indeed one of the questions is about how schools and school libraries have responded to the varying key themes of this year. Children are curious and will have had a huge number of questions about different things throughout this year; schools are key allies in supporting their learning journey through these cultural issues, and we’d like to know how these subjects have been tackled. Take part in the survey here.
Blog post: Librarians under lockdown: rising to the challenge– Bev Humphrey, Literacy and Technology Consultant and Digital Content Manager at the SLA, shares some of the ways in which school librarians have risen to meet the challenges of lockdown life.
New reading list for able readers at KS3. NACE trustee Sue Mordecai has compiled a list of recommended reading for able readers in key stage 3, available in the templates and checklists section of the NACE members' resource library (login required). This is a working list and one we will continue adding to. To share your suggestions for this list, or for other age groups, please contact communications@nace.co.uk.
Ahead of her workshop on this topic, NACE Associate and Head of English Tracy Goodyear shares three key considerations when planning a challenging KS3 English curriculum.
After getting the ‘new’ GCSEs firmly under our belts, schools and departments across the country are now being given the space to carefully consider the quality of the diet that all students receive in their secondary years.
For any department, reviewing the curriculum is an ongoing process. There’s no quick win or easy fix: it takes vision, clarity of thought and careful consideration – all whilst trying to navigate an educational, social and political landscape that is constantly shifting.
There’s an imperative to provide students with a curriculum that is enlightening, challenging and enriching. As emphasised in the current Ofsted education inspection framework, the curriculum should be ambitious and appropriate for all students. It’s vital that complex concepts or ideas are not ignored or brushed over, and that the expectation for success and high achievement is clear. A rising tide lifts all boats, after all.
Here are some key considerations, which we’ll explore in more detail during November’s workshop.
1. Start with the end in mind
When planning a new/revised curriculum, it’s imperative to consider what the end ‘product’ is likely to look like. In other words, ask yourselves: “At the end of Year 9, if we had given the students what they really need in our subject, what sort of behaviours, skills and attributes would our students display? How will we know we have been successful?”
This goes much further than hitting target grades; we have to think beyond that. As Christine Counsell has written, “If the curriculum itself is the progression model, then the numbers change their meaning.”
During a department meeting a couple of years ago, we brainstormed some ideas about our ‘finished article’ and came up with the following statements. These are core departmental values that drive our curriculum design and delivery.
As a result of learning in our department, students will:
Be creative, articulate, imaginative learners, who are confident and secure in their opinions and thoughts;
Be adaptable and flexible communicators in spoken and written word;
Be unafraid to challenge complex ideas and material.
Our students will develop these dispositions and habits:
Having a critical eye, so that they do not blindly accept things;
They will openly welcome feedback, criticism and differing views and interpretations and not feel threatened by these;
They will be skilled in planning, showing evidence of deep thinking;
They will take risks, knowing that the learning they will experience is more valuable than the fear of failure;
They will actively listen to and reason with the ideas and expertise of others;
They will construct meaningful arguments, supporting their ideas with confidence and conviction.
They will experience learning activities that:
Have pace, choice and challenge;
Provide a healthy combination of independent and collaborative work;
Give them ample opportunity to speak in front of others;
Give them the time and space to write independently;
Offer the choice and autonomy to self-select activities that best challenge their thinking and ability;
Are well-planned by the teacher/ department, where activities have clear direction and purpose;
Enable them to build a sophisticated vocabulary, consistently;
Are academically rigorous and personally challenging.
2. Why this? Why now?
Once you have firm statements in place and a clear vision, you can start to consider the content and the validity of current content being delivered.
There are a whole host of questions to consider. Here are just a few:
Is it important to you that students know the origins of stories/ origins of language?
Is it important that students understand how or why contextual factors may influence our reception of a text?
Is it important that they understand the five act structure of a Shakespeare play?
Is it important that they are able to speak knowledgeably in a debate or a group discussion?
Is it important to you that they can write with originality and flair?
Sitting as a team and deciding the answers to these sorts of questions is hugely valuable. It encourages teachers to share their particular passions and interests and leads to purposeful discussion about your curriculum offer. It’s important that you consider your own school’s context too – what is important here? What is it vital that we equip our students with? Vocabulary instruction? Cultural capital?
3. Timing is everything!
When planning a challenging curriculum, there is a temptation to hurtle through centuries of literature at a pace; the temptation to move on and cover as much content as possible seems attractive when teaching able young people. However, any successful curriculum needs to build in purposeful time to reflect – to recognise how concepts fit together as part of a much wider picture. All students require time to reflect on feedback (and time to act on it!), time for repetition, recall and a deeper investigation into a topic or idea.
Time is crucial in the breaking down of complex tasks, too. The EEF’s recent report Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools stresses the importance of modelling and scaffolding at all levels and dedicating curriculum time to this. Breaking tasks down (rather than simplifying them!) helps students to navigate their way through challenging tasks more effectively.
Consider the various demands on a student’s working memory when asked to write. How can teachers intervene to break down some of these processes to ensure working memories are not overwhelmed? How can we ensure that our curriculum plan incorporates the time and space to enable us to do this?
It’s not just the timing of what is being taught that’s key. Timely reflection for you and your team is also crucial. Wherever possible, make reviewing aspects of your curriculum part of your weekly/ fortnightly meetings. Speak about how students are progressing, where misunderstandings have arisen, how a scheme or unit of work needs to be adapted to suit the changing needs of the students. If all curriculum review does not take place while it’s still fresh, many of those smaller, nuanced observations about learning could be lost.
Enjoy the challenge!
Recommended reading:
Turner, S. (2016), Secondary Curriculum and Assessment Design, Bloomsbury
Myatt, M. (2018), The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence, John Catt
Charlotte Bourne, Deputy Head of Learning at Shakespeare’s Globe, shares four places to get started with the free online resources developed by the theatre’s education team.
As well as being an iconic cultural venue, Shakespeare’s Globe provides free resources for schools, supporting teachers to create learning opportunities that provide challenge for all. With materials available for teachers and learners across all phases, our education resources are designed to:
·Offer flexibility within the teaching of Shakespeare through active approaches, rehearsal room techniques or technology – giving opportunities for children to flourish across a range of domains;
·Add breadth to learners’ understanding of vocabulary through interrogating language choices;
·Add depth to leaners’ understanding of the relationship between Shakespeare’s texts and their contexts;
·Use them as a springboard to wider learning opportunities, such as homework projects or longer-term investigations.
Each year we also run a “Playing Shakespeare” microsite which tracks a production as it is developed and performed. This year’s microsite is dedicated to Macbeth (details below).
Ready to go deeper with Shakespeare? Here are four places to get started…
Great for an introduction to Shakespeare or a focus on context, the Globe website’s ‘Discover’ zone provides a wealth of information on: the history of Shakespeare’s Globe(s); factsheets about Shakespeare's world; blog posts from the Globe; music at the Globe; ‘ask an actor’ podcasts.
Our fact sheets – on Shakespeare, London, writing plays, actors, indoor theatre, special effects, the first Globe, playhouses, audiences, and costumes and cosmetics – are particularly useful for introducing students to Elizabethan and Jacobean contexts in an accessible way at KS2, and can easily be adapted to your lesson objectives. For example:
·Support the development of critical literacy skills: “We have very few accounts of how the audience behaved, and most of them are about ‘bad’ behaviour. This probably tells us more about what was considered ‘news’ than about how audiences behaved all the time.”
·Introduce learners to how performance conditions impact on texts: “There were practical reasons why some plays were better suited to indoor theatres. Indoor theatres had a small stage (about half the size of an outdoor theatre’s stage). There were also stools allowed on the stage: the most expensive seats, where rich ‘gallants’ sat to be seen as well as to watch. This gave the actors far less space for big battles or crowd scenes. On the other hand, the smaller space and the candlelight enhanced a play’s magical effects.” This could be followed by an investigation into which of Shakespeare’s plays learners think would suit each type of theatre.
An interactive filmmaker for desktops and tablets, Staging It aims to help learners understand Shakespeare’s texts from a director’s perspective and offers the option to virtually stage a scene at the Globe.
Actors are filmed performing a moment of a play on the Globe stage. Each line of their speech is shot four times, each time performed in different ways (happy, flirtatious, defensive, etc.). Students decide which clips to add to the dynamic storyboard to build a final scene. They can then interrogate the choices they made, and the impact of these on how each character is perceived.
These resources support students in recognising that the text is a conscious construct, shaped by the context in which it is received – vital preparation for GCSE English that can be introduced at KS3 through this resource.
Follow-up questions can be used to support the development of critical thinking: How am I looking at this character? What leads me to have this viewpoint? What does my viewpoint ignore? Is there another way to look at them? How might [a different culture/gender etc.] view them? Which of these possible viewpoints makes the most sense given the text? This could be modelled in advance by the teacher, as “revealing the thought processes of an expert learner helps to develop [these types of] metacognitive skills” (EEF, 2018).
The Globe’s website for teachers, Teach Shakespeare provides hundreds of learning resources in multiple formats: photos, video clips from previous productions, synopses, audio interviews, fact sheets and schemes of work. Designed with input from teachers, the site can be searched by age range, play, format, or purpose (e.g. lesson plan/exam revision). No signup is needed to access the resources.
Many of these resources incorporate rehearsal room techniques. These have experimentation, collaboration and reflection at their heart, and encourage students to make their own discoveries about the text.
For example, this resource suggests the activity ‘walking the line’ to investigate Shakespeare’s use of metre: foot up on unstressed syllables and down on stressed syllables, noticing and commenting on irregularities in the ‘Gallop apace’ speech in Act 3 Scene 2 of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The ‘commenting’ is particularly important, because it is the collaborate nature of reflection that helps further the metacognitive talk referenced above. We provide video clips showing the actors undertaking some of these techniques, to model the insights that come through actively exploring the text in this way.
This site provides a gateway to all our previous production-specific websites created as part of the Playing Shakespeare project, each of which tracks a production from rehearsal to final performance. This year’s microsite is dedicated to Macbeth, with previous productions covered including Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew. Each of these sites contains photos, interviews with the cast and director, design briefs, articles and teaching activities.
The interviews with cast members give students the opportunity to unpick the texts in performance – a key aspect in appreciating the form. Listen to several Macbeths discussing their interpretations, for example, can help students understand that, unlike a novel, a drama text is incomplete on the page.
There are research articles on particular plays, written for a KS3-4 audience moving to focus in more detail on the relationship between text and context. These provide a rich exploration of writer's craft that cannot be separated from context, and can be used to model the integrated approach to this required for higher-level literary analysis.
Our Macbeth 2020 website has launched and will begin tracking the production in January!
Posted By Charlotte Bourne, Globe Education,
12 April 2019
Updated: 03 June 2019
Charlotte Bourne, Deputy Head of Learning at Shakespeare’s Globe, shares four examples of free resources available via the Globe’s 2019 website on Romeo and Juliet, focusing on the development of Assessment Objective 2.
My last blog selected four resources from Shakespeare's Globe’s 2019 Romeo and Juliet website and explained how these could be used to address the needs of more able learners, within a context of challenge for all. Here, I want to drill down into one specific assessment objective within GCSE English literature and discuss four more resources that can support teaching and learning within this area. As ever, these resources are provided free of charge and form part of the Globe's commitment to increasing access to Shakespeare.
Studying a different play? Fear not… Through the Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank project, Shakespeare's Globe also offers dedicated resource websites on:
You can also visit the Globe’s Teach Shakespeare website for hundreds of free resources, searchable by play, key stage and resource type.
AO2: analysing the creation of “meaning and effects”
Assessment Objective 2 (AO2) requires learners to “analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.”
Many of our resources begin with the “meaning and effects” that have been created. It is incredibly hard for learners to analyse a feature if it creates no effect on them, or if the meaning is obscure. Start with what interests them, or what stands out, then break it down to consider why and how this is the case.
This positions them as active learners and moves them beyond feature-spotting at word-level – important as better GCSE responses discuss the structure and dramatic impact of the text.
Furthermore, broadening learners’ understanding of ways in which meanings can be shaped – particularly in relation to Shakespeare and drama – will support their further study within the subject. Finally, this also supports learners to appreciate the text from the outside: as a conscious construct, a myriad of the writer’s choices, and the characters and plot as vehicles to carry the text’s meanings.
Read on for four free resources to help your learners develop in AO2…
The weekly blog by the Assistant Director takes learners behind the scenes of a theatre production. For AO2, this is helpful to reiterate the form, as the process – and fluidity – of interpretation of drama texts is brought to the fore: this is what we mean by “text in performance”.
The lesson activity accompanying week 1's blog looks at how Romeo changes his speech when speaking to Mercutio as opposed to speaking to Juliet, and what Shakespeare is therefore trying to suggest about his character. As well as familiarisation with different parts of the play, the comparative element draws on a higher-order thinking skill.
This activity is invaluable in foregrounding the form: as James Stredder notes, plays “are essentially speech utterances” (2009). It begins by grounding the real-world application of communication accommodation theory (see Howard Giles), applying this to Shakespeare's craft. The text-work starts with reading aloud to allow pupils to feel the different meanings and effects of each Romeo-construction (speech!). Learners then return to the blog to examine the “how” of these constructions, comparing the use of verse and prose.
This resource uses an interview with the actor playing Mercutio as a springboard for exploration. Linked to AO2, this is another way of emphasising the form and its impact on interpretation. The activity invites learners to examine textual evidence in order to decide to what extent they agree with the actor's interpretation. To add challenge, learners are asked to compare Mercutio's language with Romeo's on a particular theme: love. This pushes learners to unpick how each character's speech is used as a vehicle to convey different conceptions of love.
The next activity uses the actor's interpretation to analyse the impact Mercutio's character has on the dramatic structure: they compare Mercutio's timeline with the main events of the play, and consider to what extent Shakespeare uses Mercutio to drive the events that lead to the tragedy. AO3 is integrated with AO2 through the option to debate Mercutio's primary purpose as exploring the relationship between comedy and tragedy.
Both of these activities demand learners use references from different parts of the play and use a range of higher-order thinking skills to draw out the effect of Shakespeare's choices in constructing Mercutio.
One of the most complex, but also wonderfully rich, episodes in Romeo and Juliet is Mercutio's Queen Mab speech. The week 3 blog provides an insight into how the cast worked with this, and the accompanying lesson activity builds on this. It starts by asking learners to draw the images Mercutio creates at each stage of the speech (bar the last one), which helps in untangling the meaning. They then specify which words and phrases contributed to each section of their drawings, supporting with the precision of their analysis.
Learners then create freeze-frames of each image, reflecting on which words and phrases have had the greatest effect. The chronological sharing of these freeze-frames facilitates an interrogation of the structure: how does the speech change as it progresses? Learners then predict what the last image of the speech might be. After the revelation, read-aloud work furthers the focus on learners making choices about which words create the greatest effect here, only afterwards drilling down into language techniques. Learners finally consider how the messages within this speech could link to the wider themes of the play.
This resource is comprised of an article from the production programme on the language of love and hate in Romeo and Juliet, with accompanying lesson activities. The article deepens understanding of antithesis and oxymoron by exploring the relationship between them and providing examples from the play; however, perhaps most crucially, it models the relationship between the writer's message and how this is expressed in the language patterns of the play.
Patterns are key here: the lesson activities focus on speeches by Romeo and Juliet from different parts of the play to examine how Shakespeare uses the oxymoron to link the eponymous characters while simultaneously drawing important distinctions between them. Thus, learners are asked to analyse language and then consider how the structure impacts on the meaning of each instance.
To access these resources, plus a wealth of additional resources to support a challenging curriculum, visit 2019.playingshakespeare.org. Remember: the website tracks the production so please keep coming back to see what else we have added!
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