This article interrogates the role of retrieval practices in an urban, multicultural London classroom. With the advent of cognitive science-based approaches in recent years, retrieval has become a central tenet for testing foundational knowledge in English literature. I consider the implications of retrieval for classroom discourses concerning…

Our starting point is provided by two accounts of observed lessons. The two lessons happened, at more or less the same time, in the same English department in an East London secondary school. Both lessons, observed by the second- and third-named authors, involved the shared reading of the same novel. We are interested in the difference between…

Grouping students at secondary school based on attainment is a prevalent practice in English schools. Despite this, research has suggested that those placed in low attaining groups are disadvantaged by their placement. This study aimed to provide an account of student engagement, teacher interactions and pedagogical approaches employed by English…

There is a growing consensus that the study of literature in English secondary schools is suffering a crisis: a fixation with knowledge and facts, a loss of creativity, and a denigration of students' own experience, to name a few. This article argues that this is, in part, a result of the conception of culture embedded in the current National…

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, on 18 March 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the immediate closure of schools in England. (The closure was not absolute: schools would remain open for vulnerable children and the children of key workers. In practice, though, very few children have continued to attend.) In what follows, nine English…

When we consider the kinds of knowledge that teachers have (and need), we should pay attention to that much-undervalued category, the knowledge that we have of our students - of their lives and identities beyond the school gates as well as what happens in the classroom.

This article is an investigation into the Reading Partners scheme at a large inner London comprehensive school in England; this research comes from a small scale study I carried out as part of my Masters of Teaching at the Institute of Education, University College London. Reading Partners is a project whereby younger and older students within the…

Study abroad programs offer undergraduate students multiple benefits by providing academic, professional and personal learning experiences that cannot be fully replicated in the domestic university setting. Recognizing the unique positioning of preservice English teachers participating in a London summer study abroad program, the author created a…

This paper explores the application of texture and textual attractors within a cognitive stylistic pedagogy for English teachers. Texture, defined as the feeling of building and experiencing a fictional world, is here taken up as a facilitative way of thinking about how reading, language, experience and cognition operate in the classroom. On the…

This article investigates the professional memories of English teachers who began their careers between 1965 and 1975. The teachers began their careers in circumstances that offered opportunities to work in collectivist ways. Their memories reveal a strong collective identity, a powerful sense of agency and a critical engagement with the aims of…

This article explores how circumstances in different conjunctures influence the types of narrative, working practice and "Professional Memory" that English teachers construct. It is argued that the circumstances in which teachers begin their careers help to formulate attitudes, values and missions that remain potent over long periods.…

This essay explores how and why English teachers, especially women, must unpack and honour the many facets of our autobiography that make up our experiences and identities in classroom practice. Drawing on the work of Jane Miller and Anne Turvey, it starts with a 'moment' with a Year 10 class. It calls for attention to be paid to the intensely…

Two recent books, "English Teachers in a Postwar Democracy: Emerging Choice in London Schools, 1945-1965" and "The London Association for the Teaching of English, 1947-67: A History," explore an important period in the development of English as a school subject and in the remaking of the professional identity of English…

Over the past two decades in England, those intent on the transformation of schooling have sought to win support for their neoliberal project by emphasising the difference between, on the one hand, their vision of what education is, and what it is for, and, on the other, the practices and forms of education that preceded the era of standards-based…

This article looks at three examples of using language autobiographies in English Education. The first example comes from using this approach when teaching in inner London to unlock the cultural and linguistic knowledge of secondary school children. The second example looks at how this approach was adapted in the training of secondary English…