The annual conference of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) will be held at the Hayes Conference Centre, Derbyshire, January 20-22. Speakers include poets Michael Rosen and Eva Salzman, and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce. Workshops include: making the most of ICT; music in the English classroom; and taking creative writing “into the unknown”. Residential fee: pound;395; pound;325 members.

Tel: 0114 255 5419

www.nate.org.uk

A teachers’ workshop about Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, subtitled “cutting through to new worlds”, has been organised by NATE at Aston Lakeside Conference Centre, Birmingham, February 3. It will provide active, motivating approaches to an adaptation of the trilogy. Copies of the play and the new NATE Drama Pack are included.

Tel: 0114 255 5419

www.nate.org.uk

The English Association is running sixth-form conferences at Leicester Grammar School, March 6, and Birkbeck College, London, March 16. The first, “Setting the Scene for Shakespeare at A-level”, is co-organised with the Shakespeare Centre. Fee: pound;15 full day; pound;10 half day. At the second, students will attend a lecture on Hamlet, given by Professor Kiernan Ryan, Royal Holloway, University of London; and one on Synoptic assessment: close reading and context, given by Adrian Barlow, former OCR chair of examiners for English. Two seminars on set texts are also included. Fee: pound;20.

Tel: 0116 252 3982

www.le.ac.ukengassoc

The London Association for the Teaching of English is holding an oracy conference, February 4; a writing conference, May 13; and a residential conference, July 14-16. Contact John Wilks, 20 Vanbrugh Hill, London SE3 7UF.

www.late.org.uk

Literature and Poetry of the First World War, a conference for students of ASA2 English literature, is being held at the Imperial War Museum, London SE1, March 17. Speakers include Jon Stallworthy, emeritus professor of English at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Fee: pound;15 per student.

Tel: 020 7416 53135444 www.iwm.org.uk

COMPETITION

For the Christopher Tower poetry competition run by Christ Church, University of Oxford, students aged 16-18 are invited to submit poems about “A Building” by March 3. First prize is pound;3,000, second pound;1,000, and there are significant prizes for winners’ schools. Winners can also attend the Christopher Tower summer school. Entries will be judged by poets Mark Ford, Carol Rumens and Peter McDonald.

Tel: 01865 286591 www.towerpoetry.org.uk