Grimm & Co’s magical approach to helping children write stories
A scheme in Rotherham aims to boost Sats results and improve lives by harnessing children’s creativity
Is Rushdie right about rote learning? Is Rushdie right about rote learning?
Salman Rushdie thinks schoolchildren should learn poems by heart, and some experts think that, far from making kids hate poetry, the practice could be ‘life-enhancing’
Exam board rules on punctuation are wrong, wrong, and wrong
Linguistics expert David Crystal tells Hay festival that school advisers are ‘not aware of complexity of decisions they are asking kids to make’
Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’
Italian economists find access to books can materially affect earnings compared with those who grew up with few or none
Portland schools ditch textbooks that question climate change
City’s education board will now insist on teaching that ‘the climate crisis is created by human beings’
Michael Armstrong obituary
Educationist who championed progressive teaching methods
Illustrator Chris Riddell attacks school tests with ‘Sats beasties’ drawings
Children’s laureate and political cartoonist draws series of ‘grammar monsters’ in response to warnings that current system is bad for children
Aarathi Prasad: ‘Indians hedge their bets’
Aarathi Prasad describes a push to integrate the modern ‘western’ approach with traditional systems in India such as ayurveda and yoga. But is this truly desirable?
Anyone with a problem they can’t solve heads for my library
In a world where services and spaces are privatised, with Citizens Advice and police stations facing cuts, what libraries offer seems too good to be true
A girl’s guide to growing up: how does Laura Bates’ advice play out in the real world?
From social media to sex education, today’s girls have a more complicated path to adulthood than ever before. Laura Bates hopes her new book will help them on their way – so what does student Ellie Olcott make of it?
No one would listen to Stephen Fry if he was poor
The actor sneers at child sex abuse victims and says free speech is being stifled. But he is part of the 1% who enjoy a platform – it’s ordinary people who struggle to be heard
Doreen Massey obituary
Radical geographer, feminist, theorist and political activist admired worldwide for her work on space, place and power
Finland ranked world’s most literate nation
Report pooling studies of ‘literate behaviour characteristics’ from around the world puts the Nordic country first, 16 places ahead of the UK
Keith Jeffery obituary
Historian who wrote on the British and Irish military and chronicled the early years of MI6
Senegal’s founding president’s poetry heard in native language for first time
The late Léopold Sédar Senghor was a renowned poet but only recently has a significant volume of his work been translated from French to Serer