Saturday, 2 March 2024

Poetry is 'memorable speech'.- [blog updated and extended]

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The poet WH Auden coined or adopted the phrase 'memorable speech' to describe poetry (rather than define it). This is a rich vein to...
Tuesday, 12 December 2023

Letter sent to Guardian about Covid Inquiry and Herd Immunity

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  I've spent the last few days struggling with your headline and the testimony given by Mr Chris Whitty ('Herd immunity was never UK...
Wednesday, 22 November 2023

Some responses to this week's Covid inquiry

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  (1) Patrick Vallance (from Guardian Nov 20 2023) Vallance diary: “PM meeting – begins to argue for letting it all rip. Saying yes there wi...
Friday, 17 November 2023

Some ideas about writing and recovery

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This week, I gave a talk to Lewisham headteachers about writing and recovery. I read some poems and talked about why and how I wrote them. H...
Thursday, 25 May 2023

My thoughts on this year's Key Stage 2 Grammar, punctuation and spelling test (which used to be the SPaG test)

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I am looking at the 2023, 'Key stage 2, English grammar, punctuation and spelling test. Paper 1:  questions' My first thought, as ev...
Sunday, 21 May 2023

Three Twitter threads on reading, language and a response to an article in the Sunday Times today by Nick Gibb

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  TWITTER THREAD ON NICK GIBB AND READING BEGINS HERE: I will try to tackle the untruths (in this article below by Nick Gibb) in my tweets ...
Friday, 19 May 2023

How to massage the media to send out a message to make people believe that 'Literacy' standards in England are improving:

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  Guardian: 'Despite the improvement in ranking, England’s score remained virtually unchanged since the last round of assessments in the...