One of the most influential books I have read over the last few months is Open: how we'll work, live and learn in the future by musician, educator and fellow Leeds resident, David Price. If you haven’t come across it before, I can thoroughly recommend it.  In his book, David Price explores new trends in working and learning made possible by the internet and the rise of social media. There are several ideas from Open that have powerful implications for education and I will explore several of these on this blog in the next few months. One of the most important parts of being ‘open’ is about reciprocal sharing.  Over the last few years, I have been turning my ideas into buyable teaching resources available from my shop on the TES platform. I put together short and long planning prompts and Medium Term Planning documents for creative writing, literacy, and cross-curricular units of work.   Selling resources is a vital source of income to support my independent wo...

Me (left) and the Doctor (right) in the fantastic grounds of Brookhouse School (no, it's not the Disney castle...) Our second week on our Kenya trip and an opportunity to visit the Karen campus of the Brookhouse School, Nairobi. And quite an experience it was too! A private school, Brookhouse is regarded as one of the most prestigious schools in the country and it is hard to deny that the campus is stunning: a small farm with ostriches, secretary birds and guinea fowl, life size sculptures of safari animals in the playground, the library with the 'learning tree' that is also a staircase (and also the pride and joy of Jonathan, the school's librarian) and a computer lab that is decked out like a space station. These are facilities that most schools in Kenya - and, for that matter, the UK - can only dream of. While this material investment may be out of reach for many schools, the schools commitment to creative learning is not. Meeting the deputy headteacher an...

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...

This half term I have been teaching art with Year 1. Far from just being an art project, this work has shown how vital DT in helping children apply what they have learned in core subjects. For this art project, our topic has been the Chinese Dragon Boat festival, celebrated by Chinese communities around the world in early summer. We even had one here in Leeds! Our challenge has been to create a dragon boat that will float on water. The children drew and painted 3D dragon heads to attach to the scaly bodies that will make the floating part of the boat. The trickiest part was attaching the corks to the inside that would help the boats float on water. It took a lot of trial and error using a water tray to get it just right. The children did a fantastic job and have really enjoyed it. It just goes to show how vital art and DT are to children's learning - not only do they draw in creative aspects of learning, completing a project like this requires knowledge of science, math...