Becoming a highly effective English subject leader: top tips

Theresa Clements and Michael Gray offer top tips to support primary English subject leaders to be successful this academic year.

Developing Vocabulary: a Pointless activity

Michelle Nicholson shares some practical strategies for developing vocabulary with a particular focus on exploring closely related words.

Love that Book: The Arrival by Shaun Tan (2006)

Theresa Clements looks in detail at how Shaun Tan's highly acclaimed graphic novel can resonate at a whole school level.

Love That Book KS1: Last Stop on Market Street

In this blog, Kathy Roe takes Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena and illustrated by Christian Robinson as inspiration, and provides some...

Love that Book: The Velveteen Rabbit (by Margery Williams and William Nicholson, 1922)

Ahead of the HfL English advisory team’s annual conference, ‘Love That Book’, Kirsten Snook reflects on one such book that has a special place in her...

Getting meta on early reading skills: reflections on the HfL Early Reading Project Pilot (ERPP)

Following the hugely successful pilot of the joint project across EY and Primary English teams, we are thrilled to be able to share with you some of...

TAFs for all year groups? Why not?

In this blog, Alison Dawkins describes how a new product from Herts for Learning – Teacher Assessment Frameworks for Years 1, 3, 4, & 5 – came into...

Where the wonderful things are: unlocking the potential of picture books in the primary classroom

In this blog, HfL Adviser and Professional Artist Ruth Goodman takes a look at the rich world of children's picture-books in advance of a brand new...

Repeat after me: the HfL KS2 reading fluency project works… works… works!

With a wealth of experience from working with a diverse range of pupils from a wide range of schools, we are now in an even better position to share...

All Hail Macbeth!

In this blog, Kathy Roe shares how one school brought the drama of Shakespeare's Macbeth to vivid life - through drama and writing - drawing upon HfL...