The ASL Schools Conference will offer CPD in areas of language and literature for teachers of English, for BGE, National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher. The presentations will cover drama, poetry, novels, film and television, and creative writing, in English and Scots.

Please note, this event is aimed at teachers and teachers-in-training, specifically those who are or are likely to be delivering the English curriculum in Scotland.

Programme

• 9:45 Registration
• 10:10–10:15 Welcome
• 10:15–10:30 Teaching Resources for Walter Scott (Anna Fancett)
• 10:30–11:05 Approaches to Creative Writing (Alan Bissett)
• 11:05–11:25 Coffee
• 11:25–12:00 Three Novels for BGE (Maureen Farrell)
• 12:00–12:35 Presentations of Scotland on Screen (Helen Bradshaw)
• 12:35–1:00 Young Writers Awards
• 13:00–14:00 Lunch
• 14:00–14:35 Gaelic Drama for the English Classroom (Michelle Macleod)
• 14:35–15:10 The Scottish Ballads (Kirsteen McCue) 
• 15:10–15:20 Break
• 15:20–16:00 Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s Makar, will speak about her work
• 16:00 End of Conference

We plan to stream this event live on our YouTube channel. Although free printed resources and class sets will only be provided to those who attend in person, we will endeavour to make these materials available as free downloads from our website after the conference.

Alan Bissett is a novelist, playwright and performer who writes across a range of media – prose fiction, theatre, TV, radio – and was trained as secondary school English teacher.

Helen Bradshaw is a teacher of English and is the Faculty Head of English, Drama and Literacy at Strathaven Academy.

Anna Fancett is a teacher, storyteller, and scholar. She is currently working with the University of Aberdeen’s Walter Scott Research Centre to promote the work of Walter Scott to school pupils.

Maureen Farrell is a former teacher of English, and is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow.

Kathleen Jamie is a poet and essayist, and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2021 she became Scotland’s fourth Makar.

Kirsteen McCue is Professor of Scottish Literature and Song Culture at the University of Glasgow, and Co-Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies.

Michelle Macleod is Professor of Gaelic at the University of Aberdeen. Her 2021 anthology Dràma na Gàidhlig: Ceud Bliadhna air an Àrd-ùrlar / A Century of Gaelic Drama won the Gaelic Literature Award for Best Non-Fiction Book.

ASL gratefully acknowledges the support of the Scottish Government towards this conference.