English: resources for distance learning
20 January 2021
Hints and tips - 6 minute read
This blog was originally published on 30 March 2020.
Isobel Woodger, OCR English Subject Advisor
In this blog, we’re expanding on our Twitter list of resources for distance learning, to share what’s out there for you and your students.
OCR resources
Student-friendly articles:
We’ve been working hard to put together some introductions for your students about using our teaching and learning resources, as well as ways to use past exam material. Both articles provide lots of ideas for how students could use the content we’ve got available, in order to build their own confidence in using resources without teacher direction.
Teaching and learning resources
If you’ve not looked at the teaching and learning page on your qualification web page in a while, it’s worth a visit. The most useful sections are below.
Delivery guides are fully resourced webpages (and often PDF documents too) covering key topics. These pages have subject content, conceptual and contextual ideas about the topic within the qualification. Lots of activities and information summaries available.
Teaching activities are straightforward activities for use in the classroom that could be adapted for distance learning methods.
Teacher guides is an area for guides to teaching particular skills as well as additional resource booklets.
CPD materials
We’re also in the process of making our CPD materials from courses that ran this academic year available to you online. These include the presentation materials and any additional exemplars or activities provided in the session. These can be found on our professional development page, under ‘Past courses’.
Ideas for home learning
KS3: This is an ideal opportunity to explore some wider reading beyond class readers. Book reports are a first port of call, but it’s worth thinking about moving this beyond a summary and a review. Nothing’s to stop them picking an audiobook, like the ones Audible has made available for free, but student choice is key. Students could select five tasks from a range, such as:
- A list of questions for a book club about the book
- An introduction to go in a new edition of the book, explaining why it’s important, popular or worth reading.
- A review in the style of…
- An extra chapter for the independent bookshop edition
- The starting chapter of the sequel.
Another project that could be made as individual or collaborative as you’d like is setting up a class newspaper.
KS4: Of course students are able to use past exam materials but, there are lots of other things to do.
Students could also listen to some short pre-1900 fiction via Audible, I’d suggest Four Classic Ghost Stories, featuring Poe, Wharton and Stevenson. This can help students prepare for unseen passages in GCSE Literature while also developing their literary knowledge for GCSE Literature.
Using short stories as style guides for students to emulate can be really generative (as per our blog on creative writing). Please get in touch with us over Twitter @OCR_English if you want some short story recommendations!
Take a look at whether the BBC's new programming can help support textual study with television and stage adaptations.
KS5: Podcasts and article summaries can be valuable ways to develop contextual awareness at A Level, but I wanted to focus on some activities that can be done with and without internet access.
- Write like Rhys: Write a short story responding to a gap in one of their core texts, similar to Jean Rhys’ response to Jane Eyre with Wide Sargasso Sea.
- Own anthologies: Create their anthology of wider reading built from: poems they think connect to their text (with editorial commentary); a monologue in the voice of a character of their choosing; flash fiction based in a chosen setting from their text. This can be done individually or collated from the whole class.
- Concept webs: Start by identifying three key concepts to their text or topic. Then map them against each other, additional concepts, and contextual information.
- Questioning the question: select a discursive question and ask them to identify assumptions the question is making, what definitions they need to provide and sub-questions they need to answer in order to write a fully rounded response. See a visual example using the Twelfth Night question from 2018 here:
Online, television and theatre resources
The BBC has renewed its Bitesize offer both with online activities and television programming. Online resources for GCSE English Language, GCSE English Literature and Functional Skills are available. Secondary students will be able to watch two hours of programmes supporting the curriculum on BBC Two every weekday from 11th January 2021. These will be complemented by drama adaptations, as well as relevant BBC science, history and factual programmes.
The National Theatre has, for the last few years, been experimenting with ways to share their archival and NT Live recordings with schools, evolving from National Theatre On Demand, to the new National Theatre Collection. State schools can access this for free and can share log-in details with pupils so they can access resources at home until the end of the academic year in 2021.
Shakespeare’s Globe has a range of online options. Their GlobePlayer requires a subscription, but their YouTube premieres will offer a stream of one of their productions for free on YouTube (for instance their Romeo and Juliet will be available until the February half term in 2021).
Other theatres have also made their archival footage available, including The Old Vic and the Southwark Playhouse.
Subject associations and charities
English and Media Centre have created some free work packs for KS3 and KS4 students from their fabulous resources. They’ve made Barbara Bleiman’s speech about What Matters in English available, as well as running an excellent blog series on learning from home, starting here.
The National Association for Teaching English has also made some of their resources freely available during this time, for example, their spring issue of their magazine Teaching English.
The Chartered College of Teaching has made available some resources for home learning in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown that, while not subject-specific, might prove valuable.
Online platforms
Your school is likely to be set up either to use Google’s G-Suite for Education and Google Classrooms or Microsoft 365.
- Google’s suite of tools includes Google Docs and Slides among others, creating a platform for online learning. The suite also includes Jamboard, which is an online canvas tool for sharing ideas as a group, and Forms, which enables you to run quizzes.
- Microsoft 365 gives you access to OneDrive, where you can share files easily with other staff or students; as well as online Office programmes like Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Particularly useful for teachers are OneNote, which can be used to set up Class Notebooks (a guide) and Forms which can be used for quizzes.
Kialo: This online platform is built for discussion and debate. It enables students to respond to discussion topics set by you, with a commenting feature so you can offer feedback. This is a way to make exploratory talk virtual.
Two other quizzing platforms with lots of pre-created sets of questions are: Quizlet and Kahoot!
Stay connected
If you have any other resources you’d like to share, tell us about your suggestions in the comments below, or over email English@ocr.org.uk or @OCR_English on Twitter. Do sign up to our subject updates and receive information about resources and support.
About the author
Isobel Woodger, OCR English Subject Advisor
Isobel joined OCR as a member of the English subject team, with particular responsibility for A and AS Level English Literature and A and AS Level English Language and Literature (EMC).
She previously worked as a classroom teacher in a co-educational state secondary school, with three years as second-in-charge in English with responsibility for Key Stage 5. In addition to teaching all age groups from Key Stage 3 to 5, Isobel worked with the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education as a mentor to PGCE trainees. Prior to this, she studied for an MA in film, television and screen media with Birkbeck College, University of London while working as a learning support assistant at a large state comprehensive school.
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