In the ninth grade, our youngest year and the equivalent to the first year of GCSE, students are asked to write short personal narrative moments that capture the sensory detail involved in a scene. They might read a poem by Natasha Trethewey or Tyehimba Jess, or a short story by Julia A...
And if the tasks are engaging, they will be enthused to learn more. Our role is helping students to “see the point” of geography, not just as a subject where they might gain a good GCSE grade, but as a powerful discipline in its own right. Gemma Pollard teaches geography at Bour...
Throughout my first decade in teaching, I have seen how increasing pupil exposure to poetry, particularly at KS3, raises performance in English and specifically in pupils’ ability to understand and analyse metaphor, figurative language and subtext with more confidence. But poems can do much more...