LDP Resources 2.0

These KS3 resources are revised versions of those created by the original NCELP team between 2019 and 2022. The purpose of these revisions is three-fold: first, to respond to further teacher feedback (from teachers with extensive and more recent experience of using the resources); second, to carry out proposed changes identified by the original resource creators themselves; and third, to undertake revisions that support alignment with the recently established new GCSE Subject Content (finalised in 2022) and approved specifications and word lists (approved in 2023).

It is important to re-state that neither the original nor this revised version of these resources is intended to provide a ‘one size fits all’ set of materials for the classroom. Just as teachers would not teach ‘identikit’ lessons from a textbook, they will want to adapt these to respond to the needs of their cohort, the timing and distribution of their lessons, their school assessment schedules, and their own teaching expertise and preferences.

It is hoped, though, that teachers may find these revised versions useful as a starting point for curriculum planning and teaching as they (and their accompanying SOW) align fully with the principles of the pedagogy review, the National Curriculum objectives, the Ofsted research review for languages, and the new GCSE for first teaching Autumn 2024, and first examination Summer 2026.

In addition to ongoing feedback received since 2019, I consulted key users of the SOW and resources, including a small focus group of teachers from the Language-Driven Pedagogy (LDP) Facebook groups who responded to the invitation to review, after having used the SOW for at least one full year in their schools.

This review process culminated in a set of broad principles and concrete actions.

Revisions aim to ensure that the resources:

• are teachable within the allocated time
• contain more frequent opportunities to combine and apply taught language in short, interaction (speaking and writing) activities
• make the most of paragraph level texts and passages earlier in KS3
• have even more overt prompts to personalise language in the open-ended tasks

whilst they retain:

• a focus on regular, explicit phonics practice
• the unique approach to the systematic, spaced revisiting of vocabulary
• the input-based (listening and reading) practice of grammar features that force attention on the meaning and function of grammar and that precedes production
• as close as possible an alignment with the new GCSE wordlists of all three Awarding Organisations

In practice this means:

• paring back certain phonics activities
• trimming the number of items in tasks of all kinds
• adding a few pacier vocabulary practice activities
• streamlining speaking activities (avoiding handouts wherever possible)
• simplifying some tasks in other ways (e.g., layout, animation)
• and using the space created for the additional consolidation activities

In addition, I have tried to:

• draw out and expand the existing cultural references in the earliest lessons (later in KS3, where a larger vocabulary has accumulated, the references are already frequent and rich)
• strengthen contexts a little e.g., by bringing in the narrative characters earlier
• make the use of the TL for task organisation/classroom language a little more prominent (to reflect what was already there on the original SOW)
• signpost (in the teacher notes) where particular vocabulary additions align with one or more of the Awarding Organisations’ new GCSE word lists

Rachel Hawkes
August 2023