Katherine Childs

Part of having a day off each week means that I can spend that day catching up on planning etc and then have my afternoons and evenings pretty much free for when my kids come home from school.

There are worse places to get stuff done.

Someone needs to write An Inspector Calls 2 in which an impoverished youngster has all their teeth fall out due to lack of NHS dentists.

Why We Hate Gerald Croft An Inspector Calls has been a staple of the GCSE specification for many years. There are those who believe it is a timeless classic, exploring important ideas about society and there are those who thi...

One of my favourites!
Happy Friday

#EduSky #UKEd #Literature #TeamEnglish

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So you want to write a scheme of work In Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, the King of Hearts says to the White Rabbit in court "Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end: then stop." Now, this is all very well and goo...

Remember those schemes of work you were supposed to write in your gained time? The ones that you saved for the holiday? Yeah, about those…

#EduSky #UKEd

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A Working Mum and Why I Don’t Want It All It used to be that becoming a mother was the end of your career. Mums didn’t work; they were expected to stay at home with their children and that became their role. It’s a very important role, no dou...

Possibly a controversial title, but stick with it!

#EduSky #UKEd

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Most kind of you!

What makes a good teacher? The summer term is the time when all those who have been in ITT are hopefully landing their NQT positions and those who are have been teaching a while have the chance to look back on the year that’s b...

And here’s another - doesn’t matter where you are in your career, it’s always important to reflect on what makes a good practitioner.

#EduSky #UKEd #UKTeaching

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Getting started in teaching I remember vividly the interview that led to my first teaching job. It was July 2009 and I had given up hope of securing a post for my NQT year and resigned myself to a term of supply, with the hope o...

Starting a teaching job this year? Nervous? Here are some of my top tips as someone who’s been in the classroom for 15 years.
#EduSky #UKEd

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What can I do about racism? Race is a strange one for me. Most people assume I’m white – maybe some Spanish or Italian in my family, but white. I’m not. My mum was born in Pakistan to a Pakistani Christian parents and my dad was...

In a few weeks, we’ll be back in classrooms with children who may have overheard extreme views at home regarding the recent protests around the country. This is something I wrote a few years ago and it feels relevant now.

#EduSky #UKEd

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Shakespeare and Titles I've been having a think. Dangerous, I know. And it's the summer holidays, so really all thinking should be banned, but I can't help it. I've been having a think about Shakespeare's titles and how muc...

This from last summer when I was prepping to teach Othello for the first time in a decade.

#EduSky #UKTeaching #TeamEnglish

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Yes please!

I wrote this after the #TeamEnglish National Conference in 2018, and this bit seems especially pertinent:

“I love @Team_English1 and I'm so proud to be a part of the best virtual English department ever.”

#EduSky #UKEd

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Hey hey! I might have to share my “why I love #TeamEnglish” blog if we’re getting the band back together!

The Art of Teaching the Art of Writing Essays As teachers, particularly of English, we are used to writing essays. We will have spent countless hours as undergraduates crafting mighty compositions on the literary canon. Some of us are even weird ...

Sunday funday blog time! A little bit of essay-writing-teaching reflecting.
#EduSky #UKEd #UKTeaching
#BloggingTheClassroom

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Getting the most out of my visualiser After more than a decade in the classroom, and seeing various teaching trends come and go, one thing stands out as the most important in my teacher toolkit: me. As a subject specialist, everything the...

Another oldie! No longer teaching OMAM and moved on from the Hue, but the basics still stand: a little how-to guide for anyone who is just starting out with a visualiser.

#EduSky #UKEd #EnglishTeaching

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I can’t remember if I’ve done this or not!

How to become EXCEL-lent at spreadsheet In this blog, I will guide you through some of the things that have made my life easier when analysing data in spreadsheets. I am entirely self-taught, so there may well be a quicker or more direct ro...

In today’s trip down memory blog, a short how-to for people who want to get better at using spreadsheets to analyse data.

#EduSky #UKEd #EnglishTeaching

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#LiteratureSky

Frankenstein: A Very Modern Prometheus Indeed It’s been 200 years since Mary Shelley introduced us to Victor Frankenstein. So why exactly is her novel still so popular? I explore the enduring qualities of the very first science-fiction novel. In ...

#EduSky #EnglishTeaching #Literature

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Now. I am excited now.

Writing About Writing I've never really liked creative writing. That's a lie: I've never really liked teaching creative writing. I've always enjoyed the process of writing myself, but I found teaching it so tedious. I stru...

#KCTeachingBlog #Edusky #EnglishTeaching

Some creative writing ideas from a workshop I attended a few years ago

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So you want to teach students to write an essay… As teachers, we're experienced essay-writers. We have degrees and trained at postgraduate level and are well-versed in the construction of extended pieces of writing. 16-year-old students are not. A g...

#KCTeachingBlog

An oldie but maybe a goodie:

How do we teach essay writing?

#Edusky #EnglishTeaching

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How I Teach… Literature Texts. PART ONE For the GCSE English Literature exams, students must be familiar with: A Shakespeare play A modern text A 19th-century text 15 poems The skills needed to analyse unseen poems When I say “familiar wi...

How I Teach the Literature Texts - Part One

A short overview of how I prepare to teach my texts for GCSE

#KCteachingBlog

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English teacher here!

How I Teach… Structured Talk In the 2023 DfE Reading Framework document the word ‘talk’ appears 67 times. I’m not going to quote all 67, but here are some examples of how talk is mentioned: “Developing talk” in relation...

#BloggingTheClassroom
#KCTeachingBlog
#Edusky

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How I Teach… Question 5 My year 11s have just done their English Language Paper 1 mock and whilst there were some real highlights, many of their responses to Q5 were in serious need of improvement. Since the beginning of my ...

#BloggingTheClassroom
#KCTeachingBlog
#Edusky

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How I teach… I've decided to do a bit of a series on how I teach certain elements of the English curriculum. Having stepped down from a position with a TLR in order to focus on my own classroom practice, I've been...

Hello 2024!
I’m going to be #BloggingTheClassroom as part of my own reflective CPD this year. Hopefully some nuggets of teaching wisdom find their way through!

#KCTeachingBlog

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