This month I began a PhD at the University of Sheffield. At last! I have wanted to start a PhD for a long time and have waited for the right opportunity to arrive. Working alongside the exciting team at the School of Education in the area of digital literacy was too good an opportunity to miss.  The focus is children’s identities as authors through digital technology. In teaching children about creative writing, I have had ample opportunity to reflect on how they might experience authoring texts in school, at home and at play. Digital texts - such as videogames and films - are hugely important components in how children experience storytelling and yet these experiences are largely neglected by schools. As a keep computer game player myself, I am curious about the way playing sandbox (e.g., Minecraft) and openworld games and creating naratives within them might mirror storytelling in print. And, of course, I am interested in what schools might learn from it. As my fieldwork w...

Drama is an integral component of primary English teaching. It is the engine that drives creative responses to stories, helping children explore characters, settings and predicaments. Yet the primary National Curriculum for England (DfE, 2013) makes scant reference to drama. Some generic guidance indicates the importance of speaking, listening and performing although these points are both too obvious and too generalised to be useful to teachers and subject coordinators hoping to embed drama across the whole school. When writing our forthcoming book, Teaching Shakespeare in Primary Schools: All the World's a Stage (Routledge, David Fulton, 2021), both Maureen and I felt that whole-school drama guidance for primary teachers - so integral to teaching Shakespeare's plays - was notably lacking from online resources currently available (apologies if you have produced such a document but we could not find it!). We decided to compile our own. In fact, you may have found this blog post...

In August 2019, I started an experiment . Rather than sell my teaching materials online via a platform, I would share them in a pay-as-you-can arrangement. One year on, I reflect on the experiment and why (spoiler alert!) it has left me poorer. ⌚ 7 minutes Last summer, I read the excellent book called Open: how we'll work, live and learn in the future by David Price. This book discussed how developments in technology are altering how we share and gather information and, as such, have transformative implications for how we live, work and learn. These implications are relevant now, Price argues, and will become even more so in the future. It's a fascinating book. Price argues that the spirit of open enterprise (also called Creative Commons) allows traders and service providers to cut out large consultancy agencies, publishing platforms and so on by speak to their clients directly. If you have a training course to sell, for example, avoid an agency: instead promote it via socia...

Hello! 你好!    My name is Stefan Kucharczyk and I am an experienced primary school teacher, lecturer and writer based in Leeds (UK). I have always loved losing myself in stories: in books, films, computer games, theatre, lego and anything and everything else. But my real passion has always been writing. Now, I work with primary school children and teachers to support them in making writing an immersive, creative and fun experience. I am interested in the potential of creative, enquiry-based learning to change the way we think about education in primary schools (and education in general) and to help prepare young learners to live and flourish as literate citizens in an exciting world. I also work in Higher Education as a university lecturer and tutor. No, I am not an all-seeing expert with schemes of work under my arm, but I have experience, passion, imagination and the willingness to take a risk - all that you need to change the world. To book me for workshops, CPD, speaking ...

Is your classroom a creative place? If you are a teacher pondering this question, the answer you give will depend on how you understand the term 'creativity'. It might also give an idea about how much you value creativity as a skill for learning and how much of it goes on in your lessons.  Defining creativity can be a challenge because how we understand the term is often tied up with how we feel about ourselves as a creative being. It can be quite personal. For some people, the idea of being creative is about art or dance because this seems like when people are at their most imaginative. If you can't draw, that line of thinking goes, then you're not creative. For others, creativity is about being a free spirit, breaking free of the rules. These are both misleading and it is the persistence of these myths that has helped many people decide that they are not a 'creative type'. That only certain people can be creative is yet another myth.  The t...

I'd like to share with you an experience from my time as a child at school. It is a story about a teacher, a lesson, something I learned. You can put the handkerchief away as this isn't a sob story, and you don't need to jot anything down as it doesn't represent a masterclass in teaching from a lost age. It is an experience that was accidently inspiring and formative, in spite of what may have been intended, rather than because of it. It is the story of Mr Collins, a ping pong ball and a DT lesson. First a bit of context. The date is a little fuzzy, but it was possibly 1988 (once I've explained you'll see it certainly has a 1988 feel to it) and I was in Year 2 at my first school in South Staffordshire. That's what upwardly mobile Eighties families called (and still call) parts of Wolverhampton. I was probably seven years old and was a child fairly unmoved by the whole 'school' thing. My class teacher was the aforementioned Mr Collins. At this ...

Last month I was delighted to join up with the Story Makers Company at Leeds Beckett University - a collective of creative practitioners who work with schools across Leeds and beyond to promote storytelling and encourage young authors to find their voices. SMC held a creative event on 27th June where members showcased their excellent work to teachers. The event was a huge success - well done to all who were involved. To celebrate the event, the SMC published the first edition of Story Maker Dialogues : an interactive journal collecting ideas and 'think pieces' to promote discussion about creative practices in school. My article about developing creative writing in primary schools was included too. Click on the picture below to access the full journal. To find out more about the Story Maker Company, visit their website ! If the journal didn't load, please follow the link: http://anyflip.com/lcyg/uosj  

Dr Peter Mugo Gathara (left) and Prof Kisulu Kombo (right) from Kenyatta University   Hello teachers! Jambo from Kenya! I’m here for a visit to Nairobi. When I have not been striding across the Maasai Mara, feeding baby giraffe to the Out of Africa soundtrack, I have been visiting the School of Education at Kenyatta University. Thank you for the welcome – asante sana !  But don’t be jealous UK teachers – it’s colder here in Kenya than it is in Leeds! Book literacy CPD for your school’s September INSET! Whether your school’s literacy teaching needs a bit of a shake up or a new sparkle, an ARTiculate CPD workshop is the ideal for your school’s INSET day in September. If your school is getting back to basics, I have workshops designed to help teachers choose and use quality texts, develop independent writers, engage reluctant writers and use more effective editing or redrafting techniques. For schools looking to develop and enhance their literacy teaching, I can guide your s...

Hello teachers! Happy half term to you all. You’re nearly over the line! As you roll into that post-SATs-practising-sports-day-empty-out-your-trays time of year, there is no better time to experiment. With that in mind, take your class for a magical browse in Ross MacKenzie’s brilliant The Nowhere Emporium , a place of secrets and wonders. Ideal for free-flowing creative writing for all of Key Stage 2 and the perfect starting point for some exciting art and drama. Scroll down for details on how to use The Nowhere Emporium with your class. Harris Burdick: the case file Last month, as part of a CPD course for primary leaders, I lead a workshop on creative writing that explored Chris Van Allsburg’s intriguing picture book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick . After discovering a mysterious letter by Chris Van Allsburg, teachers were asked to write part of a story linked to the Harris Burdick illustrations. Their writing has been passed onto the relevant authorities and has been ...

Hello teachers! With the number of ‘awareness’ days slightly overwhelming the calendar, it is most certainly forgivable if you’ve blanked them all out. May is full of them, by the way. While National Handwashing Day and International Dawn Chorus Day (5th and 7th of May respectively, if you have your diary to hand) might not get your pulse racing, one awareness worth being aware of is National Share a Story Month which runs throughout May. So, if you are looking for a perfect sharing-book to celebrate, look no further than The Willow Pattern Story by Allan Drummond, a beautiful take on the story of the famous Chinese pottery design. It is ideal for reading together, alone or using it for your literacy lessons. Scroll down for details on how to use The Willow Pattern Story to set your literacy lessons aflutter. Greater Depth in writing CPD – Pudsey schools away day – April 2018 I was delighted to be invited to present at the Pudsey Family of Schools away day last week. It was an opp...

Hello teachers! Lights, camera, ACTION! This month’s newsletter is all about film and about how it can be used to inspire creative teaching and creative writing. Read on to see how I am using it with children in classrooms from Leeds to Cape Town, changing the way schools teach and how children think about themselves as storytellers. I have even included a free resource to help get you started using film to inspire your class. If you want to know more, I offer CPD training on using film to teach literacy for primary teachers in the UK and around the world. Click here or visit www.articulateeducation.co.uk to book it for your school! The Arrival: child migration in Cape Town ​​ One of the things that brings me to Cape Town this year is the chance to support a research project in one of the city’s primary schools. The project explores how child migrants to Cape Town are accommodated by the education system. Using innovative methods such as photography and The Arrival – a pictu...

Ok, I know we are only half way through filming but I couldn’t resist making a quick poster for the movie! A lot of the work I do involves children filming or publishing their work. I think a fundamental part of developing children as authors or artists with a genuine sense of voice is that they get to see their work promoted, shared and celebrated. If you’re making a film for a real audience, then it needs to be promoted as a real movie. I wonder how much of a perception shift the impact of this has?  When you explain to a group of children that you are going to publish a book or make a film, one of the greatest challenges is convincing the children that you mean it – that their work really will get shared even if it is just locally in the school. This, I suppose, offers an insight into how they view their education. From past experiences, getting children to see themselves as authors requires an injection of confidence and when they see their work being shared publicly, ...

The film project got off to a flying start with the children at a primary school in Cape Town this afternoon. It was wonderful to be invited to work on this research project into migrant children’s perspectives on inclusion in schools. Last week, the lead researcher discussed inclusion with a group of six children from Grade 4 – a mixture of migrant and local children. To make this topic accessible, the researcher had used The Arrival by Shaun Tan: a wonderful picture book that follows the journey of a man and his family who leave their home to build a life in a new country; the story explores the challenges and surprises that await them. The book has no words and the fantastic illustrations make the book part graphic novel, part photograph album. Last week, the lead researcher worked with the children to take their own photographs around school to enable the children to identify things that showed that the school was including them (or not) in the life of the school. ...