James Hall

In my sixth year at Shirley Park; it is a great place to work for so many reasons

After listening to @AyoCaesar talk to @akalamusic about exclusions, I thought about the impossible dilemma school leaders face. The link between exclusions and youth violence is depressing. Zero exclusions isn't the answer, but there are solutions. mrvallanceteach.wordpress.com/2023/02/25/tac…

This is such an excellent opportunity for anyone looking to join a joyful, ambitious school with top curriculum, leaders and teachers. Kids are pretty great too! The English team and curric in particular are stellar @Team_English1

A carefully modified copy of Northern Lights, inspired by Lyra's mischief no doubt.

Been off sick feeling truly rotten for a few days, but my spirits have been lifted by an adorably excited email from one of my Year 11s showing off that they got to see A Christmas Carol at the New Vic this week with their family ✨

We launched our non-fiction extract booklet today in our Reading for Pleasure programme. Kicked off with Bill Bryson’s The Body, read by the ever brilliant @JamesHallTeach. Was cracking.

Bewildered as to how it could be that a tutor at university has advised my second year mentor against teaching context in English.. Supposedly learning about Malthus will make pupil responses to ACC less "authentic"?🤦I didn't realise Dickens prescribed to the Aesthetic Movement.

So pleased to have been awarded my accreditation as an @ssat #leadpractitioner today - very grateful to @OasisAcademySP for backing me and the support of my colleagues and family. Excited to keep pushing forward as a practitioner in 2021!

Excellent first prints from y8 this week! @OasisAcademySP

@bridiemcpherson @LauraLolder @Team_English1 Currently working on building oracy into the whole KS3 curriculum with 'turn and talks' built into curriculum as well as debate style activities, often used as preparation for writing - we believe reading, speaking and writing are firmly intertwined.

@bridiemcpherson @LauraLolder @Team_English1 We integrated speaking and listening practise into a Year 9 Language Paper 2 unit. One lesson per week practising writing and delivering speeches inspired by non-fiction content from the week. Last week was dedicated to preparing and completing a S&L 'mock' - went quite well.

Soooo @Team_English1 Talk to me about your speaking and listening at KS3. Embedded throughout? Dedicated units? Any general musings appreciated!

@TelezaConnell @Team_English1 @PiXLUpforDebate I do now! Thanks

@JamesHallTeach @Team_English1 Do you follow @PiXLUpforDebate ? They have some good material that you might find useful.

I am working on building debating into our English curriculum as a form of oracy intervention; I ran Debate Mate a couple years back and have some ideas, but could anyone please point me toward some great reading or resources on this? @Team_English1

@Lit_liverbird @Team_English1 Thank you! I've been finding Robin Alexander and Voice21 very useful but haven't explored Mercer and Dawes.

@JamesHallTeach @Team_English1 Also Neil Mercer, Lyn Dawes and Robin Alexander are the authors to read to start off.

I would like to see a few less salty posts about misapplications of pedagogy, and more constructive support for common misconceptions. Anything less is toxically pretentious, self-congratulatory and elitist; it's disheartening to well-meaning practitioners in our community.

@PhilpTeach @MissCPEnglish @Spes102 @FunkyPedagogy @Mathew_Lynch44 @_miss_english The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

We are introducing a 'dreams' unit for year 7, does anyone recommend any texts that could be good to use? Please retweet 😘 #teamenglish @MissCPEnglish @Spes102 @FunkyPedagogy @Mathew_Lynch44 @_miss_english

Enjoyed presenting an impromptu CPD for our trainees at @OasisAcademySP inspired by this article; the shift from “Does anyone know”? to “Does everyone know?” is such a critical one if schools are going to acheive educational equality - no differentiated learning outcomes please.

Our growing department 'library' - line managers setting mentees pedagogical or subject reading every week or so in line with action steps and/or department priorities to discuss during coaching. Currently working through 'Why Don't Students Like School?' with my three mentees.

Love this from Josh. Our curriculum has to have direction and substance: “is it all mapped out deliberately, sequenced carefully, and built rigorously so as to allow all students to reach this ambitious end point, and not just the one clever child sitting in the front row?”

"removing aspects of the curriculum and replacing them with imported goods would not work" So true; explains why dropping in what I thought to be a stonking new Dickinson module to a Y8 scheme which revolved around 'Tragic Heroes' really didn't work for building knowledge.