It’s WORLD POETRY DAY, Monday 21 March 2022 – Hooray! This is the best excuse (if you ever need one) for spending the day with words and meaning. For yourself, revisit the poems you remember from your own childhood – the ones that moved you, the lines you keep in your head somewhere, the vague…
Getting in early for PETAA’s 2022 Leading with Literacy Conference This year’s title is from babble to Batavia and beyond. When: October 21 and 22 from 8:30 am to 5:00pm AEDT Where: The University of Sydney Holme Building, Science Road, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 2050 Registration: is open now, for in-person or online attendance, or for…
Dear Mum and Dad I have been going through a box of my mother’s. She was a hoarder, and the box contained mementos from her life. And ours. When we were young we made our own birthday, Christmas, and Fathers’ and Mothers’ Day cards. The ones I found had mostly been created on simple lined…
The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) has released its English K-2 syllabus, replacing K-2 content in English K-10 Syllabus. The content is being delivered in some schools in 2022, and will be implemented in all NSW schools from 2023. There is so much support for this exciting time of implementation of a new syllabus. The…
It’s the end of another challenging year for us all, and I don’t think we need to try to wrap our brains around anything more specific than being with the people we care about, Christmas dinner and having a rest. At home During the school closures forced on us by the pandemic, the emphasis for…
While we can’t actually ‘kick back’ and relax, it is time to ease the strain on our work with students, and on ourselves. Poetry and all that Poetry is one of those aspects of English that can really be delved into in the closing weeks of the year, as things start to wind down. Poetry…
A recent conversation with a teacher-in-training colleague has prompted this blog. My friend was given the task of preparing and delivering a 45-minute lesson on the question mark. This is pretty typical of the type of lesson we work with in normal circumstances. Now I can’t think of anything more tedious. As a topic for…
BREAKING NEWS: Oxford’s 2021 Word of the Year Is a Shot in the Arm is November 1’s New York Times headline. The article describes the context and reasoning behind the decision. It’s an entertaining read. “Vaccine,” already a common-enough word in English, more than doubled in frequency over the past year, as vaccines against the…
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all. Many members of our school community have been exposed to trauma, and will need care and support during the transition to whatever the new ‘normal’ is. We need to make sure we don’t overload our students (and ourselves) as we return to what has been familiar. In this…
Break? What break? So much ongoing discussion, so many opportunities on offer. It’s more necessary than ever to use our time wisely so that we make sound choices, providing the best support for our practice in own classrooms. Reading – Blog For clarity and a rigorous research base, Noella Mackenzie’s latest blog EXPLAINER: What is…