It was such an honour (and a joy) to judge this award - congratulations to Asli and Shalini on your very well-deserved win for the remarkable Love On Sight, and to all the shortlisted & longlisted authors and editors!

Branford Boase Award@branfordboaseaward.bsky.social · 6d ago

Congratulations to Asli Jensen & her editor Shalini Vallepur, 2026 Branford Boase Award winners for outstanding debut novel for young people with LOVE ON SIGHT @chickenhousebooks.bsky.social. Thank you to supporters @walkerbooksuk.bsky.social & @alcs.co.uk branfordboaseaward.org.uk/2026-winners/

If we want to attract children like bees to the idea of writing for pleasure, we must treat our classroom as a field and fill it with the sweetest of nectar – good literature.

Let's not forget the history of work-related learning & use it to draw out vital lessons about good practices & argue back to those who want to dismiss it out of hand, as damaging academic standards. This, from 2006, a on A Level & work-related learning. www.englishandmedia.co.uk/projects/wor...

Work-related Learning – An EMC Report from 2006

English & Media Centre - The English and Media Centre is an independent educational charity with a national and international reputation as a Centre of Excellence. It is a development centre, serving ...

englishandmedia.co.uk

I’m absolutely thrilled with this review of my collection of poems for little ones, 'Snap!' in the Autumn issue of @englishassociation.bsky.social @natecommunity.bsky.social & @uklitassociation.bsky.social magazine 'English 4-11'. amazon.co.uk/Snap-Poems-Chi…

I wrote this 👇 open.substack.com/pub/vicderby...

Fascinating stuff from @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social whose incredible translation of 'The Odyssey' made me really love it, rather than just admire it.

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

I wrote about the Nolan Odyssey for the LRB. I'll summarize some of my main points below, in case you don't feel like reading all that. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This

A really lovely day at @engmediacentre.bsky.social yesterday with some of our new Associate Teachers & last year’s. Great sessions by EMC staff & presentations by the new ATs - exciting & heartwarming to see such great work going on in schools & get to work with these brilliant teachers.

Imaginative writing: Our viewpoint “Ultimately, a writing project has gone well if you receive 30+ playful & varied pieces. These pieces are not only successful in terms of the objectives of the curriculum but also meaningful to the young authors…” writing4pleasure.com/2022/10/21/i...

Imaginative writing: Our viewpoint

DOWNLOAD THIS ARTICLE Imaginative writing is important. It’s important to children and adult writers alike. Imaginative writing can be found in all aspects of a writer’s life. For example, knowing …

writing4pleasure.com

We published this blog earlier this term, written by a teacher shocked at what his MAT is requiring him to do in the name of English. We've since added two comments by teachers in other locations who have been in touch about similar experiences englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/how-a-m...

How English pupils are being silenced in lessons

An English teacher sets out how he is required to teach by his senior leaders - and what it is doing to students

englishandmedia.co.uk

Another comment from an English teacher (who has now left the the classroom). A major job for the new Sec of State, Lucy Powell, is to significantly change accountability measures based on results only, what English GCSE looks like & its peverse impact on the subject & how it's taught.

We were delighted to be quoted several times in this House of Commons report into Reading for Pleasure. We hope that the new NC, when it's published in draft form, will have reached similar sensible conclusions publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5902/cm...

Tony Harrison's 'V': a poem that changed Andy Burnham's life + coincidentally was the first text EMC director @andrewemc.bsky.social taught to A Level. Not sure where secondary English teaching sits on the new PM's to-do list, but we have a few suggestions! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

At a poet’s memorial, I saw how Andy Burnham could be a different kind of prime minister | Blake Morrison

The putative PM-to-be explained how one of Tony Harrison’s poems gave him a new outlook, says poet and author Blake Morrison

theguardian.com

I hope that Argentina's cynical style of football – visible to the whole world in live action on screen and in replays – will now be relegated to the past. It's not good for the game. It's not nice to watch. It threatens injury to top players. The world has seen it & we don't like it!

I couldn't agree more! This blog on 'inauthentic' writing highlights damaging trends in the teaching of writing in primary. It's a concern at secondary too, where students are sometimes being 'trained' to use sentences & phrases taught by teachers & writing is seen as 'practising' sentences.

Ross Young@writingrocks.bsky.social · 2w ago

The rise of ‘elaborate dictation’ and ‘writing-related simulations’ in English schools: Unethical writing teaching writing4pleasure.com/2025/07/16/t...

Excellent piece & billiant quotation! University degrees in English & Humanities put thinking at a premium. One might also add that thinking & reflection are vital in secondary English & Humanities, yet they've been sadly neglected in an era where instruction & memorisation have been overvalued.

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 3w ago

My heart is heavy that we are making a collective miscalculation in undervaluing the humanities - from my FT piece www.ft.com/content/fbde...

Recently updated on our site: Graphic novel versions of GCSE English texts. 📚👍🏼 schoolreadinglist.co.uk/reading-list... #kidlit Graphic novel versions of GCSE English novels and playscript set texts for young adults in KS4 to appeal to both reluctant and able readers ...

Graphic novel versions of GCSE English texts

Graphic novel versions of GCSE English texts to appeal to both reluctant and able readers and make challenging exam texts more accessible.

schoolreadinglist.co.uk

'Dundee’s is the only philosophy programme in Scotland specialising in European “continental” philosophy....The overall programme draws women at a ratio of roughly two to one over men, already far above the discipline’s national average and rising to three to one for the art and philosophy BA.' 1/3

The AI era is exactly the wrong time to be closing a philosophy programme

Dundee’s proposal comes just as a hiring spree in Silicon Valley is raising the ceiling on what a philosophy degree can lead to, says Oisín Keohane

timeshighereducation.com

'An Economist feature this month cited Federal Reserve Bank of New York data putting American philosophy graduates’ 2024 unemployment rate at 5.1 per cent, against 7 per cent for computer science – the reverse of what a decade of “learn to code” advice predicted.' 3/3

Why big AI labs are hiring so many philosophers

The technology presents all sorts of thorny problems—a philosopher’s favourite kind

economist.com

'Meanwhile, a Financial Times report by...Gillian Tett offers an early sign of a return to...connective thinking...: one finance firm has shifted its hiring away from “AI-native” STEM graduates toward humanities students. In the financier’s words: “We want critical thinking, not just AI.”' 2/3

Humans still matter more than AI in finance

Recruiting digital natives with critical thinking skills is going to be crucial

ft.com

New report on Reading for Pleasure, from the House of Commons Education Committee, took lots of evidence & offers many very significant ways forward. The quotations below are a clarion call for major change at secondary level & particularly GCSE English. committees.parliament.uk/publications...

I'm going to be doing a 1/2 hour performance for little ones 4+, at this event tomorrow, at 10.30am. Do bring along children, grandchildren, grand-nieces and nephews for a fun session, with actions, rhymes, silly poems (and some serious ones) and a special puppet friend called Bertorelli!

THE POWER OF THE CREATIVE-CRITICAL Fascinating blog by EMC Associate Teacher, Hannah Sayer, about what a focus on the creative-critical did for her Y12 Lit students www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/creativ...

Creative-critical Approaches at Year 12

Hannah Sayer, Associate teacher 25-26, reflects on a project to introduce creative-critical approaches into her Year 12 curriculum.

englishandmedia.co.uk

Jonathan Sellars: Taking Poetry for a Spin childrenspoetrysummit.com/2026/07/16/j...

Jonathan Sellars: Taking Poetry for a Spin

I first got the idea of using a Spinning Wheel of Poetry after shadowing the brilliant poet Justin Coe. Justin had a wheel he occasionally used in workshops and advised that unveiling it to a room …

childrenspoetrysummit.com

UK Higher Education has been widely, internationally respected and valued for a long time, including in arts and humanities. This systematic destruction of these areas of excellence is very short sighted. The creative industries are such a valuable part of the UK. bsky.app/profile/eica...

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3w ago

Advance notice of the British Academy reports published to be tomorrow (Wednesday) and their findings. It does not make happy reading if you value UK higher education and research.

We're recruiting for a MEDIA PGCE workshop leader to run up to 8 sessions for us, mainly in the Autumn term. If that sounds like something you'd like to do, then full details about how to apply are here www.englishandmedia.co.uk/projects/med...

Media Workshop Leader Post

Media Workshop Leader Post – deadline for applications 17th August

englishandmedia.co.uk

The @engmediacentre.bsky.social Summer Reads blog has landed! I’ve put in a few picks myself and have been excited to see what my colleagues have chosen - an amazingly rich, eclectic list as always! www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/emcs-su...

EMC's Summer Reads for You and Your Students 2026

EMC summer reads for you and your students.

englishandmedia.co.uk

CHOICE! Such an important thing & yet it’s gone missing as a concept & a practice in many English classrooms. It doesn’t have to be entirely open. It can be within limits but it can increase range & quantity of reading& writing, builds critical & personal response, judgement & most of all buy-in!

National Literacy Trust@literacytrust.org.uk · 5mo ago

Choice is radical 📢 @sharnajackson.com is closing #PrimCon2026 with a powerful address on the future of reading and literacy #NationalYearOfReading2026

This is a truly wonderful opportunity, for English teachers, if you've not come across it before. The teachers who have been involved over the past few years have nothing but praise for it! www.englishandmedia.co.uk/projects/rea...

The email newsletter from @jonsevers.bsky.social is about moments of joy for his 11-year-old son & their importance. The Y6 school play is one. Don't we all know this, from our own experience & that of children & grandchildren? 'Every moment counts'. Except when it crushes the joy out of learning!

Joy from Inside Out 2 Dances

ALT: Joy from Inside Out 2 Dances

static.klipy.com