1. A good blog post by Bill Bowler for Oxford University Press (with some acceptable product placement!), 5 Golden rules to help students read English in their free time https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2022/07/05/5-golden-rules-to-help-students-read-english-in-their-free-time/

“It’s better to read four short, simple, fun books than struggle with one long book that’s too hard”, says Bill.

2. Reading, it turns out, was the only area where attainment went up during the pandemic, according to the Department (Ministry) of Education for England’s ‘national headlines’ for Key stage 2 attainment https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/key-stage-2-attainment-2022-national-headlines  Everything else went down, in some cases quite a lot … PDF below.

3. The other three countries in the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/ Scotland https://www.gov.scot/education and Wales https://gov.wales/education-skills all have their own departments of education. None of them seem to have done a similar exercise to the English one, though, or not that I can find.

4. And, finally, six short (five- or six-minute) videos in the English Teaching Talks series by Renee Selikowitz to watch on your own, with colleagues or with trainees, to help you select and use effective resources with your students, Managing resources https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-teaching-talks-managing-resources

Other topics in the series include Integrating ICT with Nik Peachey https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-teaching-talks-integrating-ict

Assessing learning with Carolyn Westbrook and Richard Spiby https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-teaching-talks-assessing-learning-0

Learning Outside the Classroom with Claudia Rey https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-teaching-talks-learning-outside-classroom

and Inclusion with Susan Douglas https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/english-teaching-talks-inclusion

Recommended dosage? One a day on the journey home from school!