Every year, Royal Holloway's TeacherHub>English programme hosts a free CPD Forum on a topic requested by our KS5 teacher community.
We ask new members to complete our simple online form to become a member for free first and then you are very welcome to register for the Forum, too.
These events are designed to help our community of KS5 teachers find new points of view on old texts or tackle new texts and changes to the curriculum. Our aim is to inspire and encourage teachers to teach texts in different genres and periods, supplying teaching resources, providing information about historical periods, and hosting discussions about the challenges teachers may face in the classroom.
In the past, the Forum has included
- Lectures from a specialist in the area
- Workshops on how to teach the texts
- Roundtable panel discussions on further reading and how to tackle Assessment Objectives
- Wine, refreshments and a finger food buffet
Please see the drop-down list below for information about past events:
Past Events
TeacherHub Forum 2018: Suffrage and Women’s Voices from WW1
Following feedback from our TeacherHub>English community members, we focused on ‘Suffrage 2018 and Women’s Voices from WW1: Scars upon my Heart’.
The Forum featured:
- A lecture from Professor Anne Varty on A-Level Women's WW1 Literature, with a focus on Scars Upon my Heart
- Workshops about historical contextual information for AO3: women’s suffrage, women’s poetry of WW1, activism and feminist interpretations of Owen and Sassoon
- Teacher roundtable panel discussion on teaching resources, and how to effectively prepare students on Assessment Objectives.
- All teachers were provided with resource packs containing scholarly essays, reading lists, and links to online resources.
See the video of Professor Varty's lecture here:
Find more resources on Scars Upon my Heart on our Teaching Resources page!
TeacherHub Forum 2017: American Texts and Contexts
In response to the removal of American literature from the GCSE English Literature syllabus, in 2017 TeacherHub hosted a Forum on 'American texts and Contexts' to help teachers with the knowledge gap this created for students studying American literature at KS5. The aim was to increase teachers’ knowledge of and confidence in teaching American texts at A Level.
The Forum featured:
- A lecture from Dr McGettigan on the American Dream in The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath.
- Workshops/ seminars on “Teaching The Great American Novel” and “Teaching American Drama”.
- A roundtable on teaching resources, preparing students for exams, and extending student reading with Colette Ramuz, former Examiner and Deputy-Head, current Royal Holloway PhD student, and Louise Northey, PhD student in Education at KCL and Head of English at Raines Foundation School.
- All teachers were provided with resource packs containing scholarly essays, reading lists, and links to online resources.
This event was generously supported by BAAS (British Association of American Studies) and the US Embassy.
Dr Deana Rankin and Dr Katie McGettigan were awarded the College Excellence Teaching Prize for their work with TeacherHub.
TeacherHub Forum 2016: Shakespeare
The first TeacherHub>English Forum was on Shakespeare, as a figure who plays a key part in the KS5 English literature curriculum.
The Forum featured:
- An interactive lecture by Professor Kiernan Ryan on ‘Shakespearean Tragedy: Hamlet and Othello’
- Launch of web resources
- Workshops on historical context
- A roundtable discussion on 'bridging the gap', responding to the question ‘What can universities do to help schools (and vice versa)?’
Professor Ryan has five articles on the British Library Discovering literature pages, endorsed by AQA as GCSE resources:
