Teach Secondary Issue 14.3

ExecutiveFunctionEssentials inthe Classroom: StrategiestoSupportLearning andGrowth (ZoeBeezer,JessicaKingsleyPublishers,£15.99) Difficulties with deadlines and paperwork.An inability to stay focused.The forgetting of important tasks. Struggles with observing timetables.All fairly commonplace problems within an adult’s working day, and all examples of issues relating to executive function (EF). Discussions around the need for schools to ‘prepare young people for the workplace’ will often touch onmatters relating to the curriculum, or assessments, or sometimes resilience.What tends to get less attention are the kind of everyday, yet essential skills Beezer delves into here.Written with teachers at mainstreamsettings inmind, its principal aim is to serve up a series of effective, yet time- and resource-light strategies and interventions for building up specific EF skills (including ‘response inhibition’, ‘goal-directed persistence’ and ‘task initiation’, among others),with occasional forays into how these can be complemented by developing a growthmindset (drawing on the work of Carol Dweck), effective stress/moodmanagement and exercise. Taken as a whole, it’s a book that maywell lead to a few‘lightbulb’moments, prompting readers to see common classroomflashpoints froma newperspective, as issues that can be tackled in a considered and sensitive way. It also presents a compelling case for affording the development of EF skills in pupils asmuch importance as careers education, given the profound impact that EF skills can have on students’ future choices and fortunes in later life. What originallypromptedyou to create the BiteRisk series? I wrote it during one of the COVID lockdowns,when I was struck by how quickly somany new andweird things came to feel normal. I wondered just howbizarre a situation could become, and yet be accepted as a ‘new normal’.What if, say, all the adults started turning into werewolves one night amonth? I had a lot of fun thinking about the social repercussions of that, andwanted to take all the usual werewolf tropes and do something different with them. Has the process of striking the right ‘horror’ tone foryounger readers become anyeasier foryou over time? My horror tolerance (which I’d say is average) hasn’t really changedmuch since my own early teenage years, so I handle that instinctively. Every time I write a book, it causes a different kind of headache, but I’ve never struggledwith the tone. What’syour approachwhendeciding whether certainmaterial is appropriate for your intended readership? I tend to go withmy gut. I don’t write anything that I wouldn’t have enjoyed reading as a teenager, or would find inappropriate formy own children.Young teens have a verywide range of appetites for horror, so you’ll never get it right for everyone. Some people can’t stand blood, needles ormaggots in real life, but discover they can handle appropriate descriptions in a book, and that it even helps grow resilience towards those things.Others will skip past them. I have bookwormteenage sons who giveme feedback, and great, experienced editors whose guidance I trust. Interestingly, UK and US editors sometimes have slightly different views on when to go gorier andwhen to pull back! To parents and teachers dismissive of horrorfiction,what can the genre do for younger readers that others can’t? Everyone knows what it’s like to feel fear and disgust – the bread and butter of horror – so it’s right to reflect that in books. Real life can be scary, but experiencing fear within the safety and control of books can be enormously enjoyable, as well as empowering for young readers.The theory is that using our imaginations to rehearse fictional scary and unpredictable situations can be beneficial, so our brains reward us for doing it – theymake it fun.Most of us understand that sad books canmake us feel better. Horror can do the same. SJWills is awriter ofYAthriller/horror fiction; formore information,visit sjwillsauthor.com ON THE RADAR Meet the author S.J.WILLS AI SnakeOil (ArvindNarayananandSayashKapoor, Princeton,£20) Two pointsmade by this book really stood out forme. Firstly, that AI is great at ‘predicting the past’ – i.e. that AI-based programs used to identify failing students and suggest potential career choices for themare likely to produce self-fulfilling prophecies. Secondly, that AI technologies are seeing notably high adoption rates among ‘broken’ institutions,where the technology ismore likely to be used as a panacea.The authors domake a point of citing some apparently great workwhereAI has been usefully applied in schools, but the examples given are unfortunately lacking in detail. Nevertheless, the book offers a compelling and fascinating look under theAI bonnet.Will AI prove to be a genuinely transformative education technology? You won’t find an answer in here, but its contentsmaywell help us steer the tech in amore positive direction. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman BiteRisk: ColdBlood (S.J.Wills,£7.99,Simon&Schuster) Fans of S.J.Wills’ Bite Risk series will find plenty to chew on in this third instalment, which sees our teenage protagonist Sel and his tight-knit group of friends once again grappling with the complexities of living in Tremorglade – a small town populatedwith lycanthropic elders who turn into ‘Rippers’ and unleash their nastier side whenever there’s a full moon.Added complications this time round include the fallout fromevents in preceding book Caught Dead ,which have left Sel with a worryingmutation that he’s attempting to conceal fromthe townsfolk, plus ‘Barb’ – an experimental parasite with an insatiable hunger for blood that may hold the key to relieving the town of itsmonstrous burden. Readers can expect another pacy yarn that revels in the setting’s juxtaposition of humdrumsuburbia with familiar horror tropes given an enjoyable twist – plus the added bonus of a plot that speaks to contemporary concerns around disinformation and conspiracy theories. 37 teachwire.net/secondary B O O K R E V I E WS