The Economist Educational Foundation offers free resources to schools to develop news literacy for children aged 9 and upwards. The resources will help to develop their knowledge of world current affairs. The news literacy it advocates aims to build a firm foundation in the knowledge and skills needed to form an accurate picture of what is happening in the world.
“Every eight weeks, we publish a new resource to help nine-year-olds and upwards to develop knowledge, critical thinking, literacy and confidence through inspiring discussions about the news. Each resource includes original news content and activities to spark thoughtful discussions about the topic. Sign up to receive free teaching resources and updates” (The Economist Educational Foundation)
Past resources cover: The General Election, A positive Human future (designing the sustainable city of tomorrow), What’s the News?, Climate Emergency, Knife Crime, Brexit, Finding the truth from photographs, and more. There are workshops, activities, schemes of work and something different for each resource.
The resources come in downloadable PDFs, each providing an introduction to the whole session – informing how long it will take, what aspects of the curriculum it covers and which of the skills (scepticism, reasoning, speaking up, and open mindedness) that are covered in the exercise. It gives detailed instructions for what the teacher needs to do before the session to prepare, along with the questions and resources needed throughout.
Taking advantage of these free resources offered by The Economist Educational Foundation seem to me to be too good to miss.
