Miss Speed 📚

Classroom hack: I use my visualizer every day but found being restricted to sitting down behind my desk in order to model was a hindrance... behold my visualizer elevated on a bookcase, lectern-style, adorned with relevant tier 2 vocab for Macbeth and AIC #TeamEnglish

As teachers we have a duty to equip pupils with the knowledge to become informed citizens and lessons reflecting current events are key. This lesson explores BLM and the statue debate with a focus on discussion and language paper 2 skills @Team_English1 docs.google.com/file/d/1J7Mx…

Racism in football lesson for year 8 through the lens of analysing writer’s viewpoints; whole class fiercely engaged in current affairs and discussed meaningful ways of tackling racism in sport @Team_English1 drive.google.com/drive/folde…

Why I love teaching English: you are a teacher of everything! Year 8 asked me if it was true that the Amazon is burning so I’m aiming to enhance their cultural capital via some topical analysis of the catastrophic language used in the news @Team_English1 drive.google.com/open?id=1RX…

Hopefully this will help someone today! 14 lessons on An Inspector Calls exploring characters, themes and ideas. Huge thank you to @SPryke2, @Tom_Briars and all resource creators who have inspired me on twitter and @LitdriveUK @Team_English1 #TeamEnglish drive.google.com/drive/folde…

Created this after pupils asked if teaching An Inspector Calls could be considered propaganda, the lesson explores a hyperbolic article condemning AIC and contains challenging vocabulary, ideal for stretching HA discussion #TeamEnglish @Team_English1 drive.google.com/open?id=1Rt…

Sheila vocab wheel, useful for any last minute AIC revision to focus pupils on the language needed to be critical and exploratory #TeamEnglish drive.google.com/file/d/1bDh…

Mr Birling vocab wheel used as a springboard to annotate with ideas and quotes; students are able to develop their ambitious vocabulary in context, hopefully making it stick! Thank you for the excellent idea @FergalBonio! #TeamEnglish drive.google.com/open?id=1rP…

Finished @FunkyPedagogy's 'How To Teach English Literature' and definitely going to try out tiered models this week! See if year 9 can rise to the challenge of distinguishing the superficial from successful analytical writing 👀 Thank you for the inspiration ☺️

Impact of the vocab visualizer stand! Students stretching themselves and proud of their ambitious vocabulary use ("feminine" included in bad king qualities led to a fiery debate but we evaluated that in Shakespeare's time femininity would be condemned as an undesirable trait)

Any tips for broadening cultural capital to assist with language recognition? Yr10 asked today, "How can I know the connotations of a dove if I don't know what one is?" 🤔 #TeamEnglish

Yr7 etymology intervention inspired by @HuntingEnglish, pupils applied their learning of prefixes: mal, ben, magni, mini leading to recognition of words such as benefactor and malevolent. Enthusiasm led to shouting out of "you mean benevolent!" when describing a character as kind

Yr9 paragraph focus across this term: modified method (e.g hellish imagery), interesting active verbs, building phrases to develop argument and tier 2 vocab. Deconstructing model, then improving simple paragraph before writing independently has led to some exceptional responses!

Paragraph marking grid for year 9 P+C has resulted in a new record of 26 paragraphs marked in a mere PPA! Pupils then used EBI to guide green pen DIRT time and aimed to use ALL tier 2 vocab associated with poem

So thrilled at seeing such a remarkable difference in one of my year 7 intervention pupils. Work completed in entirety of November/December versus work completed TODAY in class. Do not underestimate the power of positive praise and growth mindset ✨

A damning insight into educational inequality. However, this graph masks the epidemic problem of low expectations, the root of underachievement. Poorer pupils can only catch up when there is a cultural shift in demanding more for our pupils, thereby raising aspiration/attainment.

Excited to return to school and see if gifting each of my year 7s a book to read over Christmas inspired reading for pleasure 📚 Their faces when they realised "Miss got me a present" was one of the most affirming moments of last term, hoping to spread more positivity this year!

On #LiteracyDay thought I would share something from a year 7, no books in a house poses a huge obstacle and contributes to the literacy gap for disadvantaged pupils. Reading charities such as @Booktrust are doing essential work, but more needs to be done

Checking personal statements of disadvantaged young people is a small way to make a huge difference, sign up here: socialmobility.org.uk/2018-p…