Author Post Archive

Posts by Rupert Knight

Are textbooks in the primary school the answer? To what problem?

Primary schools in many ‘high performing countries’ use textbooks in primary classrooms. In this post, Jane Medwell explores the role they may play in English classrooms. In 2014 Nick Gibb told us told to “shed the anti-textbook culture” in primary schools: “In England, 10 per cent of 10-year olds are issued textbooks. In South Korea, …

Subject knowledge for primary teachers: the power of community?

In this post Rupert Knight considers how colleagues in primary schools can develop subject knowledge collaboratively. The challenge of subject knowledge Like it or not, we’re working in an educational era where individual subjects are prioritised. The messages are there in documents like the 2016 White Paper and in the very structure of the curriculum.  …

Understanding comprehension

In the wake of the controversy surrounding this year’s KS2 reading test, reading has been very much in the spotlight once again, as seen in this recent TES story. In this post Jane Medwell explores comprehension as an important aspect of that reading process. What is comprehension? Comprehension is what turns “decoding” into “reading”. Understanding …

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