News
June 2008
Welcome aboard. This year we have unleashed English Progress on the world, our amazing new KS3 English resource from Pearson. It completely reinvents the traditional English coursebook for a new generation of students and teachers.
Thanks to everyone who came to the Champagne launch at the NATE conference during the Easter holidays.
We have recently added some less ponderous links - some which are more quirky and unexpected than the 'official ones'.
Recent articles have been added to the articles section and the publishing section has been updated.
ENGLISH TEACHERS
You'll find lots of materials. The most popular pages are the teacher resources, and these are regularly updated so that all conference presentations are uploaded for your own use. These cover English, literacy and learning, plus more recent presentations on leadership.
There is also currently plenty of bemused interest in my fascination with American radio airchecks and jingles.
TRAINING MATERIALS
All in-service training materials are in this section, for Network Training, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk conference presentations, and PowerPoints for the North Essex SCITT, Cambridge School of Education, the National Association for the Teaching of English, and others.
You can download any file by clicking on its name. The only part of any PowerPoint that may not run is the music tracks (my poor colleagues will know of my love of cheesy muzak). Sorry - you'll need to add your own.
In the coming months, there will be new materials on school leadership, self-evaluation, and dealing with the media.
WRITING
To see the weekly "Writer's Toolkit" articles on grammar written in the past with Dick Hudson, look at: Writers' Toolkit. I have now updated many of the writing sections, so that reviews and articles are (almost) up-to-date, including articles for Managing Schools Today .
You can also see a recent article on training written for the National Education Trust on Training Teachers
STUDENT RESOURCES
I've added a couple of straightforward guides on how to get a C or A* in English. I wrote them for Year 11 students I've been mentoring over the past few months.
WRITING SAMPLES
This is a new page giving the first paragraph or two of articles on different themes. The first part of my recent article for the Times Educational Supplement on vocational education can be read here: TES
PUBLISHING
Two new books were published last year:
There are various new projects lined up for 2008.
The new "Books" page gives details and links to Amazon where you can find out more about buying them.
JINGLES
Many vistors to the site visit because of my obscure interest in radio jingles. I no longer have time to add montages to this site, but I am host to the Bob Dinan Jingle Podcast which Bob updates with an eclectic mix of jingle samples two or three times a week.
Comments and feedback always welcome!