Hugo Kerr

The curse of cursive: Are we fetishising joined up writing?

2014-05-29T13:06:41+01:00May 29th, 2014|literacy|

Back in 2008 I had for a Head of English position. At one point during the morning, candidates were asked what aspect of English education was most important to them. I honestly have no memory of what I came up with, but I do remember another candidate saying that for him it was handwriting. He failed to make the cut. Handwriting really doesn't matter that much in most secondary schools. As long as pupils' writing isn't an illegible scrawl, teachers tend not to care too much about what it looks like. But this isn't the case in primary schools. My daughters both [...]

The effect of affect

2021-07-26T09:39:36+01:00February 24th, 2013|learning, literacy|

For those of us fortunate enough to be literate, the whole idea of Literacy in schools can seem bewilderingly over complicated. Something that comes to us as naturally as breathing can hardly require all the fuss and bother devoted to it, surely? Reading and writing can appear so straightforward that there must be something wrong with those who struggle. But, if we're able to resist the temptation to label those with poor literacy as somehow deficient and thus attribute biological or social causes for their shortcomings, we might have more of a chance of addressing some of the real issues. One [...]

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