Teach Secondary 13.5

MakingEveryPELessonCount: Six principlestosupportgreatphysical educationteaching (JamesCrane,CrownHousePublishing,£14.99) Books presenting subject-specific teaching advice don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it’s enough to take readers with you on an engaging tour of a subject’s assorted intricacies and quandaries,while showing how cutting edge research can be appliedwithin your practice to winning effect. That’s verymuch the case here with the latest addition to Crown House’s now 10-strong ‘Making Every Lesson Count’ series,which guides readers through six chapters dedicated to challenge, explanation,modelling, practice, questioning and feedback in relation to a specific subject. For the series’ PE entry, Crane draws on what’s evidently a prodigious amount of pedagogical knowledge, honing in on how Rosenshine’s principles of instruction, advanced feedback strategies,metacognition and the like can enrich your lessons. He also has some helpful suggestions for how to negotiate the tricky balancing act between the practical realmof physical activity and increasing emphasis on theory that’s now routinely expected of PE teachers. Crane’s guidance throughout is that of a patient and generous practitioner,with a fierce determination to see students get asmuch out of their time in the gym, sports hall or playing field as possible – and one which readers will more than likely find themselves inspired by and be keen to emulate themselves. What arewe talkingabout? The 16th annual ‘What KidsAre Reading’ report based on data gathered by the Renaissance Star Reading andAccelerated Reader (AR) literacy tools for schools. Sowhat are kids reading? According to the report: “InY7,JeffKinneywas popularwith boys,but girls becamemore interested [compared to their preferences at primary] inAliceOseman andDavidWalliams. InY8AliceOseman became the top book for girls,but GeorgeOrwell was top for boys. InY9 toY11 Steinbeck appeared in addition toOrwell, and Rowling sustained her re-emergence.” What newer titles,or lesswell-known authors areprovingpopular? The latest titles fromKinney andWalliams frequently appear in themost-read titles fromY4 right up toY9-Y11 – a finding that the report’s authors note as being ‘rather depressing’.One comparatively newauthor – albeit one forwhommost kids need no introduction – wasMarcus Rashford,whose motivational book You CanDo It and three-and-counting ‘Breakfast Club Adventures’fiction series seemed to be embraced byboys and girls alike. The report observes that, “The average level of difficulty haddeclined.However, these easier bookswere not being readwith any greater degree of reading comprehension,” with “little correlation between a book’s difficulty and the comprehensionwithwhich it was read.” Whichauthors/titlesdo students actively enjoy reading? When called on to vote for their favourite books, Ernest Cline’s Ready PlayerOne topped the poll amongY7s,whileY9-Y11 went for Heir of Fire by SarahJ.Maas. What is thisyear’s keytakeaway? It did seemstriking howoften the books cited byprimary age children as their favourites were someway above their chronological ability – and howdramatically that seemed to change at Y7, at which point “ The difficulty of favoured bookswas no longer well above chronological age,” before declining evenmore sharply thereafter.As the report’s authors put it,“ It seems that transfer to secondary school has a striking effect, even on highlymotivated readers. ” The full ‘What KidsAreReadingReport 2024’ document canbedownloadedvia bit.ly/wkar2024 ON THE RADAR In the news WriteCutRewrite– TheCuttingRoomFloor ofModernLiterature (DirkVanHuilleandMarkNixon, BodleianLibrary,£35) Perhaps the second hardest thing for a writer to do (after commencing work in the first place) is to delete parts of what they’ve written – as encapsulated in the well-worn phrase, ‘Kill your darlings’.Of course,we usually never get to see those deletions,which could potentially show landmarkworks in a whole new light – until now.There’s something rathermagical about getting to view handwritten drafts, complete with crossings out, penned by the authors themselves. Students can often give the impression of wanting their work to land perfectly on the first attempt, so if nothing else, one huge benefit of Write Cut Rewrite is how it visibly shows that even themost heraldedworks of literature rarely emerge emerge from authors’ hands fully-formed. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman TeachingwithAI:APractical Guide toaNewEraofHumanLearning (JoséAntonioBowenandC.EdwardWatson, JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,£20.50) Given the speed at whichAI technologies seem to be developing, one has to wonder how long TeachingwithAI’s literal shelf life is likely to be. At least for now, it presents forward-thinking educators with an approachable overview of keyAI milestones and guidance on its potential classroomapplications (albeit froma US perspective, andwith a fair amount of discussion dedicated to the college/university experience). If you can get past that, you’ll find some carefully considered and thoughtful discussion of the technology’s potential applications and ethical implications that extendsmuch further than the practical ‘how to’ suggested by its title. Bowen andWatson make a compelling case for the need to develop new forms of assessment that can bypass AI’s facility to enable cheating by students,while also serving up numerous suggestions for useful AI prompts that will have you speedily bringing ChatGPT to heel. WHATAND HOW ARE KIDS READING? 49 teachwire.net/secondary B O O K R E V I E WS