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Off the Shelves Brilliant titles foryou andyour students to explore GreatRelationships andSexEducation (AliceHoyleandEsterMcGeeney,Routledge, £34.99) Teachers keen to get ahead of the new compulsory RSE due to arrive this September should look no further than this impressively large tome of teaching ideas and suggestions devised by an experienced sex education teacher and a social researcher. It’s nothing if not comprehensive, containing engaging classroom activities and prompts for discussion pertaining to the all topics you’d expect, including contraception, fertility and consent, but also ventures into areas comparatively unexplored within an RSE context, such as masturbation, sexual norms and gender roles as portrayed in pornography. The book’s breadth can seem a little overwhelming at first – the activities are sourced from all over the world and ostensibly aimed at practitioners working with all ages between 11 and 25 – but the straightforward presentation and no-nonsense tone make it a rich source of lesson inspiration. ACurriculumofHope (DebraKidd,CrownHousePublishing,£18.99) Teachers weary of the strictures imposed upon them by the National Curriculum will likely find much to admire in Debra Kidd’s fourth book. Stating at the outset that any strong curriculum will call for five key pillars of practice – coherence, credibility, creativity, compassion and community – she proceeds to guide readers through a series of botanically-themed chapters that make the case for a curriculums that go beyond simply being knowledge-rich. At primary, that means building on younger pupils’ prior knowledge and embracing Mantle of the Expert; at secondary, improving GCSE results by dramatically improving KS3 provision and utilising curriculums that are still knowledge- rich, but which also do far more to nurture human development and help young people come to terms with who they are. Yes, there’s plenty of ‘progressivism’ here, if you want to call it that, but it’s grounded at all times by a clear-eyed, informed awareness of what’s actually achievable and workable in practice. TheMeritocracyTrap (DanielMarkowits,AllenLane,£25) Teachers of citizenship,sociology,economics and even historywill find this book intriguing. It will certainlyequipyouwith themeans to throwyour students a fewcurveballs, We’ve come to believe thatmeritocracy is a good thing,but according toMarkowits, the ideal ofmeritocracyhas,in itself,caused class divisions between the‘elite’and the middle class.Themodern push towards higher and higher achievement can be seen both in the classroom (witness the fierce competition for places in‘good’schools) and the boardroom (where colleagues jostle to secure promotion to the higher echelons of management).While a postscript assures us that the situation in theUK remains better than that in theUSA,Markowits’proposed solution – equalityof outcomes,ratherthan just opportunities – is problematic in all sorts ofways.The book isworth reading and perhaps setting essays from,thoughyou maydisagreewith its central thesis. Reviewed by Terry Freedman teachwire.net/secondary 50