Writing
The National Writing Project website: really accessible and creative ideas to get teachers and students writing
http://www.nwp.org.uk/in-your-classroom.html
Cybergrammar – Debra Myhill’s guide with mini tutorials that help teachers identify grammar structures and their functions
Once upon a picture – high quality illustrations to stimulate writing or to use in combination with each other/with texts to stimulate thinking about genre and theme
Keeping current with fiction
Books for Keeps – you can subscribe to their newsletter for free.
Love reading 4 kids
http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk
Picture books blogger – recent, reviewed and categorised
https://picturebooksblogger.wordpress.com/author/picturebooksblogger/
Suggested ‘core’ book lists linked to year groups
CLPE Core books online Teachers need to register, but this is a free resource with a distinction made between books for learning to read and books to develop higher order thinking about self, texts, the world…
Guiding readers The website linked to Tennent, Hobsbaum, Reedy and Gamble’s excellent ‘Guiding readers – layers of meaning.’ Junior phase recommendations only
Pie Corbett’s Reading Spine Recommendations for a spine of quality texts Year R to 6
Poetry
CLPE Poetry line guide to poetic forms and devices
https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poetic-forms-and-devices
EMCs Poetry Station: poetry in performance, film, animation. Many current GCSE anthology poems
The Poetry Archive: national lottery funded, adult and children’s sites. Readings, commentary, teaching resources
The American equivalent – you can sign up for a poem a day in your in-box (and/or ‘teach this poem’). If poetry hasn’t found you/you haven’t found it, you could try immersion therapy.
Poetry by Heart – KS1-5 poems to read aloud or learn by heart, teacher resources, competitions
Subject Associations
The English and Media Centre – most resources are commercially available, but lots of sound and well researched advice in their blogs:
https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/
The National Association for Teachers of English (NATE) – more yielding if you/your school is a member, but there are some free resources
UKLA: at times more primary focused but the resources and links to research are generous
Big thinkers, big hitters
Robin Alexander: Professor of Education at Cambridge, pioneer of dialogic teaching and Director of The Cambridge Primary Review
http://www.robinalexander.org.uk
Neil Mercer: Professor of Education at Cambridge University and Director of the study centre, Oracy@Cambridge. Developed the Thinking Together project and materials with Lyn Dawes, Karen Littleton and Rupert Wegerif
https://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk
Debra Myhill: Professor of Education at Exeter University and part of the research team at the Centre for Research in Writing
http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/education/research/centres/centreforresearchinwriting
Debra’s Cybergrammar site offers mini tutorials for teachers on grammar subject knowledge, implications for teaching each grammar structure and helpful mini-tests
Robert Coe: Professor of Education and Director of the Durham University Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, co-author of the What makes great teaching report for The Sutton Trust
http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/great-teaching
He and other researchers at the centre blog regularly at
Researchers
http://www.learningscientists.org/blog?category=For+Teachers
http://www.deansforimpact.org/blog.html
http://cem.org/blog/what-is-worth-reading-for-teachers-interested-in-research