The Grammar Book

THIS informative book contains everything educators need to know about teaching grammar effectively in primary school.

Divided into three main sections – Making Sense, Extending Sentences and Writing with Flair – this resource begins with the basics that need to be taught and shows readers how to apply them in sentences and wider writing. Brimming with ideas to use in class, there are also online printable worksheets and useful links. Particularly helpful are the FAQs, as well as the glossary that allows readers to quickly define a particular term. Written in a humorous style, The Grammar Book is a handy teacher timesaver.

Cindy Shanks

The Grammar Book, by Zoe and Timothy Paramour. Bloomsbury. £19.99.

How to be an Outstanding Primary Teaching Assistant

THIS book, written by and for teaching assistants, covers a wide range of roles and responsibilities support staff may find themselves undertaking.

Easy to follow with tried-and-tested ideas, it is designed to equip teaching assistants with a toolbox of skills and strategies. Key areas of the curriculum are covered, along with specific needs which may be experienced by pupils in the class. Everything is designed to be quick and easy to implement, allowing staff to draw on skills for whatever task they are asked to do. A must-read for staff wanting to develop their practice.

Sian Sparrow

How to be an Outstanding Primary Teaching Assistant, by Emma Davie. Bloomsbury. £16.99.

Asha & the Spirit Bird

WINNER of the Times Children’s Fiction Competition, Bilan’s magical adventure sweeps you away from the very first page. Living in the foothills of the Himalayas, Asha misses her father who works in the city. When he stops sending his wages Asha makes a pact with her friend Jeevan to find him. However, with the world’s highest mountains and snow leopards being only part of the obstacles along the way, Asha needs her faith to guide her, which comes in the form of the spirit bird of her grandmother watching over her. An unforgettable Indian adventure.

Aliss Langridge

Asha & the Spirit Bird, by Jasbinder Bilan. Chicken House books. £7.99.

Busting the myth of the seaside idyll

Coastal kids can thrive I FELT compelled to respond to Sally Gillen’s feature on coastal schools (Educate, January/ February, page 26 – left).

I was delighted to see Blackpool represented and agree with every point. However, I felt the issue of transient students was underplayed and that it is central to the challenge facing schools for at least the last two decades.

My daughter, now in year 11, observed that by the time of her year 6 class photo, only a

Pupils as agents of eco-change

HAVING read the very engaging article about schools’ efforts to become carbon neutral by 2030 (Educate, January/February, page 30), I noticed that a brilliant organisation called The Harmony Project (theharmonyproject.org.uk) was missing from your list.

My school developed a Harmony curriculum six years ago. It is at the core of learning, planning and community involvement and equips pupils to be agents of change rather than eco-anxiety sufferers.

It changed my teaching life by providing a coherence and a real purpose to everything the children learned, from reception year upwards.

Sian Cootes, Hampshire

Teacher’s pet Theo

Theo is a regular visitor to The Batt C of E Primary School in Witney, Oxfordshire.

Rachel Henderson, science lead and upper school phase leader, sent Educate this beautiful photo.

She says: “Theo is our class cat. He comes in every morning to have his food and lie on the radiator - if it’s not warm enough, he soon lets us know!

“The French label next to him is a permanent fixture. He has his own house-point card.

“The children adore him; he is calming for those with worries or anxiety who can stroke and talk to him.” third of her original reception class remained. It was a threeform entry school. As head of English in a coastal secondary, when we inputted classwork results on triplicate sheets, I was always reminded how challenging the transient issue was, when over a quarter of the year group was listed non-alphabetically at the end as they had not started formally at the start of year 7.

On top of economics, employment and aspirations, this all increases the daily challenge in

Email a high-resolution photo of your treasured pet with 50 words about what makes them so special to educate@neu.org.uk

Please write The editor welcomes your letters but reserves the right to edit them. Write to Letters, Educate, NEU, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD or email educate@neu.org.uk our classrooms. And yet, success does exist, and greatness is achieved by many of our students. I am now head of English and modern foreign languages at The Blackpool Sixth Form College, the only further education college in Lancashire with a rating of Outstanding in every Ofsted category and phenomenal results that are highly competitive in our current landscape.

Please note we cannot print letters sent in without a name and postal address (or NEU membership number), although we can withhold details from publication if you wish.

Despite the challenges, coastal education keeps fighting the fight.

Natalie Collister, Blackpool

Examiners: join us; your pay matters too

THE NEU has been excellently supporting teachers by raising awareness of below-inflation pay increases. However, examiners are also an important part of our education system. They are largely invisible and receive little coverage.

Senior examiners have not had an increase in fees since 2012 – and possibly since well before then. I have asked the exam board I work for when the previous pay increase was, but it has not replied. Using Bank of England figures and a figure of £200 for a chief examiner meeting fee, the pay gap from 2010 to 2022 is £83, or 42 per cent. Chief examiners and chairs from other subjects have told me that they have lost examiners because of poor pay.

Star letter

I WAS feeling defeated last night and could not stop thinking about my horrific day at work…

It had begun with me asking a colleague how their previous evening had been as I entered the building. “I worked until 10pm and then called it a day,” they replied.