1. I’ve mentioned Carne Ross’s blog, Gentle Anarchy, before. Here’s his deconstruction of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times by John Sawers, the onetime director of MI6, the UK’s external intelligence service, Deconstructing the Discourse of the State https://carneross.substack.com/p/deconstructing-the-discourse-of-the There’s a chance that the FT will have made him take it down before this gets posted, so I’m attaching a PDF as well – which probably makes me an accomplice to his ‘crime’. There are crimes and there are crimes …

Plus, a recent interview with John Sawers from Engelsberg Ideas which reads differently read through a Carne Ross lens, ‘We need to see these terrorist groups through their own mindsets’ https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/we-need-to-see-these-terrorist-groups-through-their-own-mindsets/

2. Here’s two legitimate copies, to redress the criminal balance of this post: issues 55 and 56 of the Cambridge journal, Studies in Language Testing, both edited by Linda Taylor and Beverley Baker and reviewing Language Assessment Literacy and Competence.

Volume 1, Research and Reflections from the Field, begins with a nice personal piece by Linda Taylor, Reflecting on an apprenticeship journey in language assessment literacy; Volume 2, Case Studies from Around the World is introduced by Beverley Baker. SILT site here https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/english-research-group/published-research/silt/ and PDFs below.

3. I stumbled across this Poem of the Week piece last week when reading a piece about Wilfred Owen which referred to Strange Meeting – which I’d not heard of – as his best-known poem https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2022/apr/04/poem-of-the-week-strange-meeting-by-wilfred-owen

4. Here’s a free course from Central Square Foundation (CSF), Building FLN (Foundational Literacy and Numeracy) Outcomes at Scale Using Structured Pedagogy, curated in collaboration with the What Works Hub for Global Education https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PL2lL2cUAI_HVJ6reU7l71n0WtX2N9xyss

CSF define FLN as “the ability to read with meaning and perform basic math calculations by the end of grade 3. It is the critical building block in a child’s learning journey and hence, needs to be prioritized. The three-episode series offers a deep dive on what the Structured Pedagogy approach is, what it means, and how can it be leveraged to design and execute effective learning programmes at scale. The 15-minute modules are anchored by members of the CSF team, who also share interesting case studies as well as highlights from (CSF) work on the ground”.

The CSF YouTube channel is here https://www.youtube.com/@CentralSquareFoundationOrg and their website here https://www.centralsquarefoundation.org/

5. And, finally, from the Scottish Book Trust, 20 Brilliant Novels set in Edinburgh https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-lists/20-brilliant-novels-set-in-edinburgh