GCSEs are to stay!

[SPBInDisguise]

I didn't see that coming. Sorry if there's a thread already, I did look.

story here

[merrymouse]

Maybe most of the students do actually read all the way through the play.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

I think Gove may have been guilty of acting like a bull in a china shop

may have!!!! Now there's understatement!

[sassytheFIRST]

No, no one has to take Eng Lit as GCSE. But most schools prep their students to take both - it's much more fun and interesting than Language on the whole, and many of the skills are transferable.

My bottom set yr11 will do both subjects - about 1 third will pass either or both because they are the bottom set and thus not v bright, have additional needs and chaotic lives. But we've still studied Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, poetry (including The Charge of the Light Brigade), a modern play, A Christmas Carol and Of Mice and Men. Not a noddy syllabus, that.

[sassytheFIRST]

Oh, and I want to applaud ravenak.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Are you a qualified teacher, LaQueen? Just interested. You seen very certain you know the best way to teach and so I am wondering what you base this certainty on

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

@Boffin I agree with a lot of what you say but not the bit about catholic schools. Gove is rabidly anti catholic and I know several Catholic schools that have been unfairly targeted by OFSTED and given reports which do not in any way match reality. Gove is trying to get rid of catholic schools, if anything.

[BoffinMum]

That's not what I was trying to say. I was stating that he has bunged funds to certain Jewish schools, encouraged by various people, while his mate is trying to get money bunged to RC ones. Except this is not transparent.

[noblegiraffe]

Not an English teacher, but I have to say that sending a class home with a Shakespeare play to read over the weekend seems to me to be a terrible way to introduce the text to them. The language is tricky, and without reference to some sort of translation, it would be very easy to get confused about what was going on, bored and turned off. I know because I tried reading The Tempest and it was bloody hard work. In contrast, I watched the recent Hollow Crown series on the BBC, with the subtitles on, and got a much better overview of the plot, the important speeches, the characters, and the language. And the acting helped convey understanding where things got tricky, e.g. the back and forth between Prince Hal and Falstaff. It was brilliant, and I really enjoyed it.

Reading a play as an introduction to it seems like a silly approach to me.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

His mate may be trying to get money bunged to catholic schools but since Give himself is trying to nobble them it's not really relevant.

[BoffinMum]

Ok, will retract that thesis. Others stand.

[BoffinMum]

Why would the study of a play not start will actually seeing it, then reading it, then acting it, then analysing it? Otherwise you might just as well be studying a novel.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

I have worked wih many many TAs in my time and the ones who are best at their jobs are those that work with the classroom teacher in a constructive way to support the pupils they are there to work with.

It's never personally happened to me but I am not sure how I would react to a TA who seemed to think they could do the actual teaching part of the job better than me.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

@boffin I can certainly believe the rest of your thesis. I believe that ten years or less down the line that man will be judged very harshly and rightly so. The links with Murdoch and the expenses scandal revelations alone indicate something very rotten there.

[BoffinMum]

LaQueen, I think if I had to teach a play and there was no live performance I'd show the DVD on a big screen and make an event of it. Would that be realistic?

[QuickLookBusy]

I think DVDs do have their place. Both DDs have seen plays at The Globe on school trips, which is fantastic.

But Dd2 was obsessed with Romeo and Juliet, mainly because of the Leonardo Dicaprio film which she saw at about 14. I don't think it matters that she first saw it on DVD if it attracts an interest and passion for the play.