It's the summer holidays. That sounds so good I think I'll say it again. It's the summer holidays. Hallelujah! Nearly 40 school-free days. What is APP? AFL? FSM? They mean nothing to me this month. I'm swimming in the morning, watching dreadfully addictive entertainment channels in the afternoon and dancing away on a Tuesday, shackle-free on a week night. My husband will often give me a look that hovers somewhere between disapproval and pity as he glances over to see his wife in her PJs, food

Not many people can remember everything about university, and neither can I. However, I do remember dancing the night away every Tuesday, running home from lectures to watch Diagnosis Murder and discovering the joys of our great English poets for the first time. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge were largely absent from my GCSE and A-level studies. Apart from a cursory knowledge of Blake, our great poets remained a mystery to me. I also remember being shocked that, for so many stu

Thingy. As in: "It's a thingy, Miss." As in: "Thingy wrote Romeo and Juliet, didn't he, Miss?" As an English teacher, it is a word I hear pupils using constantly. For children from backgrounds without books at home, "thingy" covers the lot - lock, stock and smoking noun. But it still blew me away to be reminded of the difference in pupils' vocabulary when I took a day out of the classroom earlier this month to attend a conference in London entitled Closing the Gap. Children from poorer backgrou

It would be difficult to find a non-maths teacher who hasn’t frozen at the whiteboard when faced with a simple sum. English teachers like me ache for the ground to swallow us, as we panic in front of carnivorous Year 9s. I have used the phrase "I can't do maths!" more often than I'd like to admit. As our maths lead practitioner pointed out: “You’d never say ‘I’m no good at reading,' so why is it OK to celebrate that you’re no good at maths?” As a female teacher, this couldn’t ring more true; if

Well, it's that time of year again. After five years of tears, tantrums and tirades the Year 11s have waved us goodbye. Those last few precious weeks - squeezed more than ever before because of the bank holiday bonanza - were spent frantically cramming the last drops of curriculum into their heads. Have they learned everything they need to know? Have they listened? In many cases the sad truth is that no, they haven't. But as always, the only really important question is: have we done all we can