How one teacher wrestles meaning and relevance from classics of English literature

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the books you studied at school are the ones that stick with you for ever. In my case it was Pride and Prejudice, but for you it might have been Macbeth or Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. These are the texts you know by heart because, once upon a time, you spent two years annotating them using different coloured pens and consigning chunks to memory.

But what broader, deeper kinds of learning might be available to teenagers studying English literature at school, asks Carol Atherton . For the past 25 years she has taught both GCSE and A-level in state secondary schools in Lincolnshire. Now, in a dozen carefully prepared “reading lessons”, she demonstrates how a generous and attentive teacher is able to wrestle meaning and relevance from old warhorses such as An Inspector Calls and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings .

Arts education is essential – yet on both sides of the Atlantic, the humanities and critical thinking are under attack. With massive redundancies announced at this London institution, is it the canary in the coalmine?

It is a couple of days before Easter, and the students who have been holding a sit-in in the Professor Stuart Hall building in Goldsmiths, University of London are packing up. The large basement smells of duvets and camping mats and solidarity and liveliness, and deodorant sprayed on in a hurry under a T-shirt, and it smells like a place where people have slept, which 20 of them have done since 20 February, with crowds swelling to 100 for spontaneous lectures.

This isn’t a story about idiot idealists making futile gestures: Mark Peacock, a 28-year-old postgraduate student in the politics department, rattles through a number of concessions the senior management team at the university has made as a result of the action. Yet Danna MacRae, 24, studying for an MA in ecology, culture and society, says the occupation has been greater than the sum of its demands: “It’s about opening up the literal physical space but also the social space to expand political possibilities. So much becomes possible when you’re living together 24/7.” I read their banner as they’re furling it up: among other things, it calls for the university to protect students’ right to protest, expand scholarships for Palestinian students and divest from any company providing equipment to Israel.

Christine Gilbert will examine response to headteacher Ruth Perry’s suicide after her school was downgraded

A former head of Ofsted is to lead a learning review into the inspectorate’s response to the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry , prompting concerns from the family about how independent it will be.

Dame Christine Gilbert, who served as Ofsted’s chief inspector from 2006 to 2011, will produce a written report of her findings later this year, it was announced on Monday.

Women with symptoms are being penalised, National Education Union’s annual conference told

The UK’s biggest teaching union is to lobby for menopause training to be made mandatory for all school leaders, saying women with symptoms are being penalised for sickness absence and disciplined on competency grounds.

Older staff were at greatest risk of “capability procedures”, delegates at the National Education Union’s (NEU) annual conference in Bournemouth were told, while others are being forced out of their jobs, affecting not only their income but their pensions.

Union poll on school buildings also highlights sewage and wastewater leaks, overheating, severe cold, pests and mould

A survey by the UK’s biggest education union on the state of school buildings in England and Wales has found two in five teachers reporting signs of vermin or pests and more than a quarter complaining of sewage or wastewater leaks.

Of the 8,000 members of the National Education Union who responded to the online poll, two-thirds (68%) said they worked in buildings that leaked, with one in 10 describing the problem as “severe”.

Prof Julia Waters gives emotional speech at NEU conference and shares video of her late sister addressing pupils

The sister of Ruth Perry, the headteacher who killed herself after an Ofsted inspection, has appealed to any teachers or school leaders considering suicide to think again, describing it as “a terrible, wrong-headed option”.

In an emotional address to delegates attending the annual conference of the National Education Union in Bournemouth on Friday, Prof Julia Waters appealed directly to teachers and headteachers who may be struggling, urging them to seek help.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org .

People want good lives for themselves, but the UK has taken so much from the Caribbean. Better to help the islands thrive

• Gus John is an academic and an equality and human rights campaigner

Does it matter if we in England are recruiting teachers so heavily in Jamaica that classrooms there don’t have enough of them? Ask those who run school systems in the Caribbean that desperately need their brightest and best. People will always want to be mobile. The issues are in what numbers, and why and how.

When I became director of education in Hackney in 1989, the first Black person to hold such a post, there was a massive shortage of primary school teachers and secondary maths and science teachers across the country. I recruited 55 teachers in Trinidad to come to work in Hackney; 50 in primary schools and five in secondary schools. They had all been made redundant by their government on the order of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of a structural adjustment programme. I insisted on three things. One, that they would come to England as family units unless they were single. Two, that Hackney would be responsible for finding them accommodation and school and college places for their children and would help to find employment for their spouses who were not teachers; and three, that they would all be supported to gain qualified teacher status and graduate and postgraduate qualifications.

Prof Gus John is an academic and an equality and human rights campaigner

Daniel Kebede accuses government of failing to tackle issue of sexism and its spread online among children

The leader of the UK’s largest education union has called for an independent inquiry into the rise of sexism and misogyny among boys and young men , saying it should not be left to parents and schools to police.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said it was “a huge issue” in schools and expressed particular concern about the ease with which pupils are accessing aggressive hardcore pornography on their phones .

NEU members at conference vote in favour of motion criticised by Gillian Keegan as inappropriate

Teachers at the National Education Union conference have voted in favour of a motion calling for solidarity with Palestine and criticising the Israeli government as racist, and declared they would “take no lectures” from the education secretary.

Gillian Keegan said the motion was “wholly inappropriate” and would cause significant hurt to members of the Jewish community and thousands of Jewish children and parents in British schools.