The 'Longman Book Project' was a series of English language children's fiction and non-fiction books, published by the British publishing company Longman. It was designed to fit the UK National Curriculum and aimed to support teachers in primary education.
History.
The Longman Book Project series was first published in 1994. Sue Palmer was overall series editor, Wendy Body was fiction editor and language consultant, and Bobbie Neate was non-fiction editor.
The Project aimed to coincide with the National Curriculum in England and Wales, the English 5-14 Guidelines in Scotland and the Northern Ireland Guidelines for English. The British Parliament passed the 1988 Education Reform Act, which outlined the framework for the National Curriculum structured around 'Key Stages' in core subjects English, mathematics and science. The 5-14 curriculum was introduced in Scotland 1991 and Northern Ireland first introduced a statutory curriculum in 1996.
The Longman Book Project was developed to teach and improve children's literacy and language skills through a range of fiction and non-fiction books that had activity resource worksheets and teaching materials with each, and as well as language skills textbooks.
A number of popular children's authors have written for the Longman Book Project including Malorie Blackman, Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen.
Structure.
A standard structure for using the Longman Book Project in education was: