Mr B

Fuel for all night election results watching:
pistachios, pimms, cava, crisps, ice cream, champagne, Irish coffee.

I remember having to visit a school refuser's house to record her GCSE oral exam with her.

Halfway through her mum switched on the washing machine. Helpful!

📚 Really enjoyed "The Ninth House" by Leigh Bardugo. Very different in tone to her Grishaverse books (which I also liked); much closer to Donna Tartt's "A Secret History" or even David Mitchell. Recommended.

Cute?! It's like a suspended disembodied wolf's head of doom and despair.

📚Greatly appreciating that Holly Bourne exists. Making it my mission to get her on the English curriculum. I've already told my kids that "Girlfriends" will be mandatory reading before they are allowed to attend a party/festival. Also: deeply uncomfortable reflections on my own teenage years.

10 bands/artists you have been obsessed with at some point in your life. In no particular order:

Rage against the Machine
Tracy Chapman
Rose Kemp
Abigail Lapell
Björk
MC Solaar
The Be Good Tanyas
Whale Bone Polly
This is the Kit
Kate Bush

Really enjoying the "Rivers of London" series by Ben Aaronovich. Just finished book 4 (below is the first in the series). Imagine Neil Gaiman doing police procedurals. In fact, they should do a crossover involving the cast of Neverwhere.

📚 Just finished "The Running Grave" by Robert Galbraith. Phew! Hard to think of a novel that I've found more disturbing. Well-written, great story, but a tough, tough read, especially at 900+ pages.

Teaching The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk right now.

We had maggots falling out of our light fitting once. I gentle drizzle strengthening to a persistent rain.

We put out a baking tray to catch them, then put them on the bird table.

Either of the above.

Plus reading each other's writing.

At least 5. Need to see the answers to know for sure.

"A Novel Is an Empathy Engine" by Cecilia Tan. A great article about what happens in our brains when we read fiction:

www.uncannymagazine.com/article/a-no...

You say this, but the Spanish language teacher at our school taught this one year with Year 8 students (ages 12-13). In translation obviously. I kid you not.

📚Really want to do a book boost, but the last four books I've read have all been disappointing. Not terrible, but just not worth trying to persuade others to read. Can't remember such a duff run before. Luckily, a student has just lent me "All the light we cannot see" which should break the pattern.

Sure. But this only goes so far. I remember one student's essay on Donne "The flea" that argued it was all a metaphor for depression. Er. No.

However, I love it when I have a multicultural class and realisation dawns that some metaphors don't cross cultures. Thus everyone makes their own meaning.

Sounds very old school. Kind of like Austen's "Dear Reader" or the way Leskov starts lots of his short stories. From more modern writers, I'm pretty sure there's also a sequence in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series that addresses the reader as the subject.

Oh wow, that looks great! I read her "Wintergirls" and thought it was excellent.

LGBTQIA+ readers, rejoice: it’s Queer Your Bookshelf day! Find your next read (or two!) among 300 books for $0.99 each in multiple genres—sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, #romancelandia.

(If you don’t know where to start, SILENT KNIGHT by Layla Reyne is one of my male/male romantic suspense edits. 😉)

Wow, that sucks. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

No. Will nag the librarian to put it on the order list for September.

Yes, really enjoyed this too.

For my friends interested in poetry, here's a zoom event on February 12 you many enjoy, with Ria Di Peeples and ME! And there is open mic, too. Details on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/events/33173... Register at us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #writingcommunity #writerscoffeebar

#UKed
How do your department heads approach moderating marking with NQTs? Is it best to provide them with marked scripts for moderation (so they can see your annotations and how you derived the marks) or let them mark them blind?

Mocks + colleague being off for a week = perfect storm of cover and marking.

Love teaching!😶

I read that quickly as saying "Best WIFE for the future" which I thought was a little forward.

‘Every school should have a library’: Philip Pullman calls for new UK laws The novelist has joined fellow children’s writers Michael Morpurgo and Julia Donaldson in a plea to ministers for action

💙📚 I agree with this ⬇️ but it's important to point out that shelves of books aren't enough to create a library.

The essential ingredient is a librarian
www.theguardian.com/books/2024/j...

Konono No.1 - "Yaya Mikolo" (live in St. Nazaire) Live footage of Konono No.1 filmed at Festival St. Nazaire, France, Summer 2009. Konono no.1's latest album is "Konono no.1 meets Batida"Buy/stream: http://s...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRA8...

"Yes (raises hand)" in Elvish.

*Raises hand*

Reasons to be hopeful: the view from a History classroom Photo by Katerina Holmes on Pexels.com This morning I visited a school in central London, as part of my role as a teacher educator. I visit my new History teachers to work with their mentors, to meet ...

A positive and hopeful education blog via @freereed59.net #edusky
intheoryandinpractice.wordpress.com/2024/01/18/r...