Helen Bowman

Reason #3984 why I love my job!

(We didn’t just cuddle newborn ducklings, honest. We also thought hard about how to plan streamlined writing instruction, focusing on doing fewer things really, really well. Huge thanks to the staff at Deykin Avenue for their hard work…and for the duckling cuddles!)

Yes, agreed. My only experience of administering it is within English.

No, it certainly wouldn’t and it has major limitations.

It’s a massive amount of work that English teachers are already doing, however, with the additional frustration that the spoken language NEA is compulsory but does not count towards the candidate’s overall grade!

Administration and monitoring would require careful thought but it would potentially be an AI-proof alternative.

I wonder if we might see a return to oral responses in some form. They were permitted for the crossover Lang / Lit cwk essay in the English GCSEs in the 2000s, & the spoken language NEA is still a feature of the Lang GCSE as a separately endorsed component.

A super-quick but utterly stunning read this weekend.

And now a treat for the train home

Absolutely wonderful exhibition on medieval women’s writing @britishlibrary.bsky.social with wonderful woman @katylindemann.bsky.social. It is so moving to see the deeply human crossings-out and margin notes in these precious texts.

I’m fascinated by this area, Claire. I feel strongly that engagement with good-quality research should be part of our professional identity. I’m setting up a journal club within my trust to build confidence & critical thinking when engaging with research. Have you looked at this model at all?

This excellent, and sadly very familiar, article is a tough but vital read.

One of my all-time favourites.

There is simply nothing better than a request for ’books, please’ from a bookworm niece on her birthday. I forgot to snap a pic of the stack but I have collated the selection for posterity as I’m pretty pleased with the choices (and it will help me to avoid buying duplicates at Christmas!).

Discovered via a recommendation from Katherine Rundell on IG, & the reason why I have been giggling and crying on the train for the last 90 mins: Clémentine Beauvais’s own translation of her superb YA novel «Les petites reines» / Piglettes. Absolutely wonderful.

A woman’s hand with a silver pinky ring placed on a hardback copy of the novel Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.

More ☀️📚: Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.

I’ve seen this compared to Little Women, but the similarities end with four sisters, one deceased. Most of the characters are so flawed as to be pretty unlikeable but the relationships are very well-drawn and so believable that I found myself rooting for them.

📌

I didn’t know there was one! I will track it down.

One of my favourite museums!

We're all surviving so far! Hope you are having a lovely summer too and will be able to get a break 😊

I think it’s a perfect storm of v successful STEM promotion (esp for girls), greater awareness of perceived employability as a criterion for parents & students, & perhaps a slightly drier offer at KS4.

I also think the increased popularity of Lang and joint Lit / Lang A Level has divided numbers.

👋🏻

I never thought English would become a shortage subject but here we are. It’s a worry.

I’m not *quite* back in work mode yet but I am starting to think about our trust’s new subject-specific PD offer for teachers in our secondary & AP settings, KS3-5.

So, #TeamEnglish, what’s on your wish list for valuable, high-impact, enjoyable English-specific PD?

Books of the summer continued: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I mean the highest praise when I say that it reminded me of some of Maeve Binchy’s short story cycles.

If you enjoy it then I also highly recommend her debut, We All Want Impossible Things 😊

This is the 3rd platform on which I’ve started a summer book thread; hopefully this one sticks!

First, Sandwich by Catherine Newman, inhaled in 48 hrs. The image of looking at your child & seeing all the children that she used to be nested within like a matryoshka doll might stay with me forever.

Thank you!

Hello! 👋🏻 Yes please.

Monday nights restored to their proper form. #onlyconnect