Cressida Cowell Interview

September 23, 2013 By achuka Leave a Comment

Cressida Cowell, interviewed by Susie Mesure for The Independent

“The competition is so tough. I put in all those pictures because kids today are much more visual than when I was growing up. The pictures make a kid who’s got it in their head that books are dull, that books are associated with school, and all those reading schemes, feel they’re exciting, that they’re fun.”

She packs in the action, ever conscious that readers could opt to watch TV or do just about anything on an iPad rather than read another chapter. This, she thinks, affects the types of new books out there. “I do think that children don’t have the attention span that we used to have when we were little, so they’re not necessarily going to get excited by the same books you loved when you were a kid. I don’t think that Black Beauty is necessarily going to set a kid on fire,” she says.

via How to Train you Dragon author Cressida Cowell: What’s making her breathe fire? – Features – Books – The Independent.

STOP testing Our Children Into Failure, Says Carnegie Winner

June 19, 2013 By achuka Leave a Comment

In her Carnegie acceptance speech, Sally Gardner speaks about her own experience of school and then turns her attention to current education policy. “STOP testing our children into failure.”

The link contains a full audiofile of the Medal announcement followed by acceptance speech.

http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/2013awards/media_ceremony.php?file=2

Hay Festival 2013: Don’t sign up to Gove’s insulting curriculum, Schama urges

June 1, 2013 By achuka Leave a Comment

I’d like to have been in the audience to hear this…

Speaking at the Telegraph Hay Festival, Prof Schama — who acknowledged his own contribution to the plans — said that the syllabus was like “1066 and All That, but without the jokes”.
“This is a document written by people who have never sat and taught 12-year-olds in a classroom,” he told an audience of teachers. “None of you should sign up to it until we trap Michael Gove in a classroom and tell him to get on with it.
“You want to say to him, ‘Let’s go into a class of nine-year-olds and do the kingdom of Mercia with them. I would love to see how you would do that’.”

via Hay Festival 2013: Don’t sign up to Gove’s insulting curriculum, Schama urges – Telegraph.

Sats girl takes Michael Gove, the comma chameleon, to task

May 19, 2013 By achuka Leave a Comment

Y6 Pupil Complains About Missing Commas

For the test, sat across England on Tuesday, pupils had to insert a correctly spelled word missing from a sentence. Question 6 read: "If there is not [blank] rainfall this month there will be a drought." Question 16 read: "As he was the [blank] of the tribe the final decision was his." The pupils protested that a comma was required after "month" in Q6 and "tribe" in Q16.

The result is mild embarrassment for the education department in the first year that the "Spag" (spelling, punctuation and grammar) tests for year 6 pupils have been conducted. The wording of the tests was approved by the Standards and Testing Agency, an executive agency of the Department for Education. A department spokesperson said: "The commas here are a matter of choice: they can be used to mark out clauses that appear at the beginning or the end of a sentence, but they are not necessary. We decided to use commas sometimes and not at others to make the tests more like real life where people will have their own styles." (My emphasis)

via Sats girl takes Michael Gove, the comma chameleon, to task | Politics | The Guardian.