1. Ample notice, so you can plan which sessions you want to attend, of the second annual Pearson English Spring Days event that starts a week today, on Tuesday 4th May, and runs for three days. It’s looking at how we’ve all coped this last twelve months, and how we continue to cope. The subjects covered will include Lost Learning, Hybrid Learning and Techno Stress. (Not quite sure what that last one’s about but probably something to do with the impact of Windows updates on one’s laptop.)
Here’s three links:
i) programme https://www.pearson.com/english/professional-development/SpringDays.html
ii) registration page https://www.english.com/blog/pearson-english-spring-days-2021/
iii) blog on hybrid learning https://www.english.com/blog/exploring-hybrid-learning-at-spring-days/
Virtual worldwide coffee breaks included, which sounds fun, and all attendees get a certificate – and a goody bag!
2. Here’s another Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) ‘guidance report’, this one offering eight recommendations for improving literacy in the early years of primary school https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/literacy-ks-1/ PDF of poster with recommendations below.
3. I’m listening to episode 3 of this Nice White Parents podcast as I write. It’s a compelling account of how a well-organised group of white parents effectively staged a take-over of a (largely non-white and plurilingual) state school in New York and changed – or tried to change – it into a bilingual French school for the benefit of their (monolingual) children https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/1-the-book-of-statuses/id1524080195?i=1000486589125 Not the first time, the reporter discovers, that white parents had attempted a take-over of the school …
4. And, finally, something completely different: a taste of Ellen Elias-Bursać’s translation of a recent novel by Croatian writer Ivana Bodrožić, We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day https://sevenstories.com/blogs/212-forget-this-city-and-forget-this-city-forget-this-city-forget-this-cit