The summer term is a time to reflect and plan for the new school year. Take advantage of the CPD opportunities available to learn about the latest research and develop your practice ready for the autumn. There are courses and webinars covering all aspects of the literacy curriculum for primary and secondary practitioners. Find an event to suit your needs.

Reading and Writing

• Join authors, spoken word artists, journalists and educational experts from 19th – 23rd June for a week of online events aimed at secondary practitioners and their pupils in the Reading Beyond the Page Pop-up Week from the NLT.
  • Cost: £40
• Find out more about CLPE’s flagship literacy programme the Power of Reading in a series of face-to-face introductory events taking place around the country starting on 20th June.
  • Cost: Free
• Do you have pupils who can decode successfully but lack fluency and struggle to comprehend age-related texts? Find out more about  HFL Education’s Reading Fluency Project and its positive impact on young people’s reading comprehension in a series of introductory webinars starting on 20th June. There are sessions for KS1, KS3 and KS4.
  • Cost: Free
• Join literacy consultant Jane Considine at one of two in-person training events exploring the tools and techniques of her popular writing approach ‘The Write Stuff’.  There is a session in Manchester on 22nd June and a session in Leeds on 30th June.
  • Cost: £215.
• Ensure your new Year 7 students make good progress from day 1 by building on the knowledge and skills acquired in the primary years. From Primary to Secondary: Helping Pupils Make Progress at KS3 is a one day, face-to-face course run by the EMC in partnership with CLPE exploring practical ideas, engaging activities and interesting texts to help students transition successfully from Year 6 to 7.  The course takes place in Central London on 23rd June.
  • Cost: £245
• Sign up for one of Just Imagine’s Teaching Through Text webinars looking at how to select appropriate, high-quality texts for teaching, and how to then plan a sequence of work that takes readers from their first experience of the text to a deeper reading. Each webinar will cover the skills and experiences that readers need to progress, including comprehension and language skills, opportunities to develop reading fluency, and approaches to encourage more reflective and analytical reading responses. There are dedicated webinars for Years 1 – 5, starting on 27th June.
  • Cost: £25 for an individual, £40 for schools.
• Develop the confidence to choose and use non-fiction texts, picture books and poetry to raise engagement and attainment in reading and writing with one of CLPE’s Transforming Literacy webinars. Transforming Literacy using Non-Fiction is on 21st June, Transforming Literacy Using Poetry is on 27th June  and Transforming Literacy Using Picture Books is on 28th June.
  • Cost: £60
• Explore ways to deliver the vocabulary and grammar requirements of the National Curriculum using quality texts. Learn how to talk about the impact that an author’s language choices has on the reader and develop approaches to help pupils transfer this knowledge to their own writing. Developing Language and Grammar Using Quality Texts is on 22nd June.
  • Cost: £60
• Beyond the Critical Essay – Improving Writing KS3-KS5 is an online course on 27th June from the EMC looking at the benefits of exploring a range of written responses to texts in order to help young writers become better critical writers.
  • Cost: £45
• Explore how to develop a text-based literacy curriculum with one of  CLPE’s Planning Literacy Around a Text webinars. Each webinar focuses on a specific title to demonstrate how a text-based unit can be used to support children as developing readers and writers, providing contextualised opportunities for phonics, language and grammar, comprehension, and writing.  There are dedicated webinars for EYs, KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 running from 29th June to 5th July.
  • Cost: £30
• Develop a range of strategies and texts to help KS3 pupils develop the reading practices that underpin critical writing in an online course from the EMC. Developing Critical Readers at KS3 is on 3rd July.
  • Cost: £45
• The NLT’s Secondary School Conference: Changing Perspectives on Literacy takes place in Nottingham on Monday 3rd July. It offers a range of key note presentations and workshops that explore issues of engagement, accessibility and the benefits of multi-modal approaches.
  • Cost: £125
• Just Imagine and Agate Momentum Trust are offering a comprehensive in-person reading course starting on 6th July and running through the academic year 2023/24. Over the course of eight face-to-face training workshops, Teaching Primary Reading will examine the latest reading research and its practical application in the classroom, looking at ways to develop environments that support real reading, effective approaches to  developing comprehension and meaning-making, understanding the challenges of disciplinary literacy, and the connections between reading, writing and oral language. All workshops take place at Scott Wilkie Primary School in London.
  • Cost: £1100 + VAT (cost includes 12 months Just Imagine school subscription with access to Take One Book resources and the Just Imagine Primary School Book Club).
• Ensure your grammatical subject knowledge meets the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum and explore ways to teach grammar in a fun and engaging way with an online English Grammar for Teachers course on 14th July from UCL’s expert Englicious team. Suitable for primary and secondary teachers.
  • Cost: £49.
• Sign up for a Teaching English Grammar in Context online course from UCL to learn how grammar can be integrated into analytical and creative teaching activities across a range of texts. Courses are available on 30th June and 21st July. Suitable for primary and secondary teachers.
  • Cost: £49.
• Sign up for the OU’s Developing Reading for Pleasure: Engaging Young Readers online course. Over eight modules, the course explores the latest research around Reading for Pleasure and its impact on children’s lives, outlines an effective Reading for Pleasure framework, and provides tips and strategies to help promote reader engagement. You can start the course at any time and do it at your own pace.
  • Cost: Free

Disciplinary and Media Literacy

• Develop effective literacy strategies for speaking, reading and writing across a range of secondary subjects with a series of online courses from the National Literacy Trust. Developing Literacy in Science runs over two sessions on 26th June and 10th July. Developing Literacy in Mathematics starts on 28th June with a second session on 19th July. Developing Literacy in PE runs over two sessions on 29th June and 6th July.
  • Cost: £120 per course
• Get tips on how to teach news and critical literacy to secondary SEND students using The Guardian Foundation’s adapted media literacy resources in an online webinar on 13th July. Open to all teachers working with secondary SEND students in mainstream and specialist settings.
  • Cost: Free
• As booking opens for the autumn term, learn more about the media literacy workshops, outreach and resources offered by the Behind the Headlines team at a virtual Lunch and Learn event on 14th July for secondary and college practitioners.
  • Cost: Free

Supporting EAL students

• Sign up for a twilight webinar on 20th June from EAL specialists The Bell Foundation looking at ways to help secondary EAL students develop their academic writing skills.
  • Cost: Free
• Explore a range of teaching approaches and activities based on high-quality texts that will support the needs of EAL children in the primary classroom. CLPE’s An Introduction to Meeting the Needs of Children with EAL webinar is on 20th June.
  • Cost: £60
• Explore practical research-informed strategies to welcome new students from Hong Kong and help them integrate into their new schools in a webinar on 28th June from The Bell Foundation.
  • Cost: Free
• Find out how to use the school library to support EAL students and enable them to become successful readers in a webinar on 3rd July from the School Library Association.
  • Cost: £30
• Sign up for a Bell Foundation webinar on 6th July looking at the latest guidance and some practical strategies to support EAL Year 6 pupils as they transition to secondary schools. Suitable for primary and secondary practitioners.
  • Cost: Free

For Librarians

• The third webinar in the NLT’s Diverse Libraries series looking at inclusive reading provision and practice is on 20th June. Author Patrick Ness and chartered librarian Barbara Band will talk about the importance of exploring complex and sensitive issues in literature for young people as well as looking at ways to address the representation of neurodiversity in conversations about children’s literature.
  • Cost: Free.
• Are you a librarian in a secondary school setting? Sign up for one of two focus groups on 21st June and 7th July to have your say in how World Book Day can best meet the needs of secondary schools.
  • Cost: Free
• Sign up for the SLA’s Summer School. Open to members and non-members, this in-person day of CPD is on 11th August and will take place in Birmingham. The day will cover planning your library induction, writing a library development plan and an opportunity to explore some of the latest books with specialist school book supplier Peters.
  • Cost: £54/£45 for members

Developing your book knowledge

• Ensure your book knowledge is up to date by joining children’s book expert Nikki Gamble for a blast through some of the best books for primary aged children published each month. The first of two June Book Blast videos looking at non-fiction books is available to view now with a further edition covering picture books and fiction due later this month. You can also catch up on previous Book Blasts or watch a series of videos looking at Choosing Books for the Classroom.
  • Cost: Free
• Expand your understanding of children’s books with Just Imagine’s Exploring Children’s Literature Summer School. The focus of this year’s Summer School is the role of Image and Design across all genres of children’s books. There are five live online sessions running from 14th – 18th August or you can sign up to watch on demand until 31st December.
  • Cost: £50

Explore more CPD options across the literacy curriculum here.