Paula Ambrossi – författare

While research evidence shows the negative impact of ability grouping on children, this book suggests that the reason the practice is still embraced is the unspoken allegiance to the values of empire that governments, schools, and many parents still uphold, promoting competition and hierarchies over and above ethical principles on the education of society’s most vulnerable, our children.The practice, which happens across social class, humiliates children deemed ‘less academically able’ by ‘rounding them up’ in front and in opposition to their ‘better’ intellectual peers. Wielding knowledge as a weapon of humiliation warps children’s relationship to organized forms of knowledge, making them antagonistic or indifferent towards it. This book responds to Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy, by focusing on the plight of those who are educationally placed in opposition to the ‘intellectual elites’: the bottom set citizen, rich or poor and ready to vote.This book will appeal to anyone concerned with democracy and children’s rights in education, including the rich, on whom I shine the light of deficit for a change. Thus, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage exemplify the bottom set citizen in all his facilitated glory. Other, more vulnerable BSCs are not as lucky.

While research evidence shows the negative impact of ability grouping on children, this book suggests that the reason the practice is still embraced is the unspoken allegiance to the values of empire that governments, schools, and many parents still uphold, promoting competition and hierarchies over and above ethical principles on the education of society’s most vulnerable, our children.The practice, which happens across social class, humiliates children deemed ‘less academically able’ by ‘rounding them up’ in front and in opposition to their ‘better’ intellectual peers. Wielding knowledge as a weapon of humiliation warps children’s relationship to organized forms of knowledge, making them antagonistic or indifferent towards it. This book responds to Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy, by focusing on the plight of those who are educationally placed in opposition to the ‘intellectual elites’: the bottom set citizen, rich or poor and ready to vote.This book will appeal to anyone concerned with democracy and children’s rights in education, including the rich, on whom I shine the light of deficit for a change. Thus, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage exemplify the bottom set citizen in all his facilitated glory. Other, more vulnerable BSCs are not as lucky.

Mastering Primary Languages introduces the primary languages curriculum and helps trainees and teachers learn how to plan and teach inspiring lessons that make language learning irresistible.Topics covered include:· Current developments in languages· Languages as an irresistible activity · Languages as a practical activity · Skills to develop in languages· Promoting curiosity · Assessing children in languages· Practical issuesThis guide includes examples of children’s work, case studies, readings to reflect upon and reflective questions that all help to exemplify what is considered to be best and most innovative practice. The book draws on the experience of two leading professionals in primary languages, Paula Ambrossi and Darnelle Constant-Shepherd, to provide the essential guide to teaching languages for all trainee and qualified primary teachers.