Category: CPD
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Harnessing the Power of Working Walls
When I started out in teaching, it was easy to confuse pinterest-perfect classrooms with those that actually had an impact on learning. As well as being vibrant and welcoming, the classroom environment can also be a valuable learning tool, a way of engaging and supporting children. With careful thought and planning, an effective classroom environment is…
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Twitter for Teachers
There is an edu-bubble on twitter and it is amazing. Many teachers, education experts, academics, authors and journalists are already making the most of this exciting social media platform by connecting and conversing with the teacher community online. I’ve been using Twitter for years but only recently started using it to connect professionally and it’s…
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The Literacy Calendar 2018-19
A calendar of literacy events is something I’ve wanted to sink my teeth into for a long time. I’ve always felt it would be useful to have and to share with all staff. I think it will put an end to all those last minute attempts to conjure up activities and resources for special whole-school…
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Fantastic Books and Where to Find Them
Much of what I do in the classroom relies heavily on quality, authentic texts, so knowing where to find them is crucial. Ensuring that children have access to fantastic books – whether it’s for lessons, a read aloud or simply for pleasure – is absolutely essential to inspire and build a community of lifelong readers.…
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Spelling in a Reading Rich Curriculum
Astonishing, isn’t it? Our ability to decipher words. It’s thought that we rely heavily on a word’s shape and layout to decode its meaning, rather than the precise order of the letters which is why the above passage is so easy to read, despite being absolute nonsense. Fluent readers have the ability to read words…
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Getting to grips with Grammar
I became a teacher shortly after my 30th birthday. I had not stepped foot in a primary school for almost 20 years and, to be honest, the grammatical terminology required to teach Year 5 English came as quite a shock. I had done well in my SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels, I’d gone on to achieve…
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Writing for Pleasure Conference
On Friday 13th July, I attended the UKLA’s first ever Writing for Pleasure Conference, hosted at Canterbury Christ Church University. As a huge advocate of writing for and with pleasure, I wanted to find out more about what this might look like in the classroom. The conference featured an introductory talk from Tracy Parvin (UK Literacy Association President),…
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Teachers’ Reading for Pleasure ‘Book Clubs’
To teach reading and writing effectively and enthusiastically, we must be keen readers and writers ourselves. With this in mind, I was looking for opportunities to develop myself as a reader and, through twitter, I stumbled upon the Open University and UKLA Teachers’ Reading Groups. Initially, I thought it was simply a book club led…
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Planning for the Needs of More Able Pupils
Whether or not you agree with the term ‘more able’ or prefer to think of these pupils as ‘high potential’ (or whether you prefer not to label children at all – after all, don’t all children have high potential?), you will inevitably encounter many mixed ability classes in your time teaching Literacy at primary school.…
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Building a Literate School
Here is my CPD review from the CLPE’s incredible Building a Literate School Conference. It was a one day Literacy conference held on 2nd March 2018 in Bristol with a focus on developing a whole school ethos for quality English provision. Download the PDF version here: CPD MINI REVIEW – Building a Literate School. For more conference…
Literacy with Miss P 