1. This looks likely to be interesting: Teaching House present Jason Anderson & Bobby Dunnett at 19:00 UK time this Thursday, 18^th May.

Jason will help us prepare for the unpredictable in our lessons;

Bobby will extol the virtues of fluency throughout a lesson.

More info and registration here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/teaching-house-presents-jason-anderson-and-bobby-dunnett-tickets-596687738087

2. There are three chances to hear From Good to Great: Using Formative Assessment to Boost Exam Writing with Kateryna Protsenko this Friday, 19^th May – at 10:00, 14:00 and 21:30 UK time. (She will be jiggered by the end of the day – as my grandmother might have put it!) More info and registration here https://www.macmillanenglish.com/training-events/events-webinars/event/from-good-to-great-using-formative-assessment-to-boost-exam-writing

And here’s one that Kateryna prepared earlier, as they used to say on Blue Peter, on Feedback that Empowers https://youtu.be/fZJWK2vkAVc

3. The UK government is delighted with the latest PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) report, which shows that the UK was the only country to buck the downward trend during the Covid pandemic https://www.iea.nl/studies/iea/pirls/2021

Here’s a short summary video https://youtu.be/2D1RnQhyAZU

and here’s a very long video of the report launch https://youtu.be/o05P8AA3_2Y

PDF of full report below.

4. Here’s something a little different: Tibet: The Unresolved International Crisis was the title of a recent Asia Scotland Institute event with the President (in exile) of Tibet, Sikyong Penpa Tsering. More info and recording here https://asiascot.com/event-recordings/tibet-the-unresolved-international-crisis-sikyong-penpa-tsering  

5. And, finally and indestructibly, news of a crisp packet from the 1960s https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65428452