Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Teach
Sleep Repeat. My name is Dylan.
And my name's Hayden. And this week we're going to be
diving into the brand new writing framework.
We're going to look at some of the social media controversy
around it. And then talking to Jane
Considine who is a real positive voice for this framework who
thinks it can have a massive impact on writing in schools.
As always, if you enjoy the episode, leave us a review.
It really helps us out and get in touch on our socials.
But first, Dylan's been rooting around his teacher cupboard, and
he's found some goodies. Firstly, first thing I want to
mention is this mug, OK? Yeah, found it in my cupboard in
that I was given it this week and then I put it in my cupboard
and then I realised the day after I've got to clear this
cupboard because I am not teaching in this room anymore.
Next year I cleared it. Look at this.
Now, anyone who is listening to this podcast and doesn't have
the absolute joy of watching us, I'm holding up a mug right now
which has Teach the Repeat Mine and Hayden's face on it our
little cover. And it was given to me by a girl
in my class who not only came in and gave me this lovely gift
with a lovely card that was so nice and thoughtful, but brought
in two mugs. And do you know who the other
mug was for hating? You do.
I do know because it was for me. I couldn't believe it.
I I've never even met this child, really.
I've probably seen them around school and suddenly they give me
a present. I was like, oh, what's this?
This is amazing. I I cracked up.
Yeah, when I opened that, like, bearing in mind this is just a
little child from your class and she's like, beaming smile.
Her parents obviously love the podcast.
Right, shout out to them. I mean, I, I, they, they might
love it, they might hate it, I don't know, but they've got a
nice little mug with a Teacher B on it.
It's amazing, I must say, as a teacher, I am very grateful for
all the gifts that we get. You know, I'm not going to sit
here and say one gift's better than the other.
We get mugs before best teacher ever.
It's so nice, so lovely. But there was just something
about this one that I just thought was so funny to me
because there's no way the child listens to the podcast.
It's just the parent full on just thinking what's a nice
gift? And I really, really appreciate
it. So from now on in the podcast,
this will be around OK. At the minute I don't really
drink hot drinks. No.
So it's filled with Fanta I. Wasn't going to expose you, but
I'm glad you've gone there. I don't mind.
But I'm going to is it every single time and it'll be like a
little trinket. Now I've been teaching for
nearly a decade, so obviously my cupboard is just full of random
stuff. The first story I wanted to talk
about this week was I love the end of the year because we
always have work experienced children in and our deputy head
has a simple rule which is we'll have as many work experience
children in as they want to come from secondary school, but
they're all ex students. Yes.
So every single work experienced child who comes in 14/15/16 is a
child who previously came to the school.
Now obviously for the first few years of my career that was
lovely, but they weren't children I knew.
No, at this point in my career I know every single one of them.
So this week we had multiple ex students come back and, and one
of them came up to me and I recognised his face immediately
and I was like, I recognised this face and he looked at me as
if to say come on, what's my name then?
And I was like, Oh no, I pride myself on being able to remember
the names of these children when they come back and I couldn't
remember. And then I thought to myself, Oh
no, I'll score. There's a visitor badge and
there's a little little name bag there.
So I just had a little look. I was like, oh, it's you and I,
And I couldn't believe it because it's so strange when you
see a child who's grown up because they look the same but
completely different. Yeah, it's the hair.
It's the hair that always gets me because quite often when
you're younger, you quite often have blonde hair.
I I know it's a silly thing, but a lot of children have much
blonder or lighter. Hair.
And then when you get older, it just tends to happen.
Your hair gets darker and that just throws me off every time
with the face, you know, you can get it.
However, I, I was a bit more proud to say that obviously I
also taught these these these work experienced students.
And when I saw a few in the corridors full named them
straight away. I was like, hey, it's full name.
Hey, it's full name. And they were like, wow, you
must be the best teacher in the school.
You remember my full name, Not like Mr. Price, He's so
horrible. He didn't even my full name.
He had to look at my badge to work out who I was.
And I was like, yeah, that's just who I am.
That sounds like a completely natural and definitely
conversation that happened that definitely existed.
But anyway, in my cupboard, I this is the ultimate coincidence
I was clearing out and I found, you know, one of those old
sample sheets of class photos. Oh, yeah, yeah.
So I found a class photo from 2019.
So six years ago when I taught these children in Year 5.
And I found I was like, no way have I found this with a couple
of them in it. And I went to show them and you
do their face like, you know, when they see themselves as
younger children. And then I was there and I was
ready for the ultimate rinse from my children because they
were in my class. So in my class with the work
experience children and I found this.
And then obviously my whole your class, like can I get up and
see? I'm like, yeah, of course you
can. Come on.
And I was ready though, because obviously I'm six years younger.
I look a bit different, a little bit trimmer, a little bit less
grey in the beard. OK.
Yeah, so I'm a little bit different, OK.
But they all, all of them said you look just the same.
And I was, I was honestly like wearing that like a badge of
honour. How often does a kid say you
look the same? It's because we finally hit that
period in life. Well, you do just kind of look
the same for quite a long time. You do, You kind of do.
And to be fair with you, you haven't looked the same since
you're about 12. Like you, you were that kid at
school that was rocking a beard at like what?
Everyone else is like just starting puberty and you're just
walking around with a beard. Like I'll always, I'll always
remember someone tell someone told me when I was younger,
you're going to look 27 for about 15 years.
And they were absolutely right. I'm just waiting to dip over
into that next period. I'm starting to because I get
the grades of my beard and stuff.
I'm starting to enter that next phase of how I look, which is
definitely just an old man. I had a similar experience when
I was 23 and I and I first started to shave my hair.
Someone said you are going to look 50.
For. About 15 years and I was like,
oh, that's weird because in 15 years I still won't be 50,
though that's funny, isn't it? Then you look, then you'll look
60 and you'll never catch up. You'll never get it will never
be the same again. Never.
Yeah. Cheers, guys.
No, but, but yeah. So I was clearing up my
cupboard, fan of random stuff as you do.
Like I found like old superhero like displays I used to make
that were laminated. And my first thought was I used
to do so much extra. I used to do so much extra
stuff. And it was.
And it did just remind me like it was really nice for the kids
and it really did encourage them.
And I do think that's where those kind of things have a
place because I remember having that little maths group like 6-7
years ago who needed that boost at their times tables and seeing
themselves as a superhero on the board and moving up different
times tables. It did encourage some of them.
I, I think looking back, I'm like, at this point, I can
encourage children in different ways, which doesn't mean I sit
there laminating a Saturday evening, right.
So, but I understand why people when I say things like don't do
that, don't do that. I kind of get the push back a
bit from teachers who are just like, it is nice though.
And I just want to, yeah, where, where do you stand on that?
Like it did make me think, do we push too much to absolutely not
do anything ever? Or do you think we need to be a
bit more clearer of people as to say, well, yeah, of course you
can. I hope not.
I think if people really listen to our podcast, right, if you
just listen to a couple of sound bites on Instagram or something,
you might you might get maybe a a miss, you might misinterpret
what we're saying. I feel like our message is, is
quite clear, which is you don't actually have to do these things
to be a good teacher. Like you kind of just said it
then it is genuinely nice to make those displays and make
those things. It is nice.
And it probably is a bit nicer than not doing it.
Yeah, but it's not like a completely linear scale of, oh,
therefore if you do them, you are literally better than the
person that doesn't do them. That's not how it works because
you can inspire children in different ways.
So that's the only message I'd really want to get across.
I think about going home and doing this extra stuff because
not everyone can. And we shouldn't be pushing a
culture. That's what we always fight back
against. We shouldn't be pushing a
culture of you have to do it to be a good teacher.
You know, you're on this pedestal if you go home and
Marty yourself and working every evening because you know what?
Most people get to the point in their life, but they just can't
do that anymore. I certainly used to do it.
I don't do it anymore or I'm not a worst teacher because of it.
I hope not. I find it a real shame and I do
find it a bit frustrating when it takes, for example, a huge
life change for someone to see that like for example, having
children. A lot of people, and I've seen
it happen who are almost like down that road of no, we all
should do this. Come on, guys, it's teaching,
it's a vocation, it's our lives. We should do it.
Who after having children completely flip and change their
mind. And I understand why they flip
and change their mind and then and then they say, no, look, OK,
I don't have the time anymore. I'd rather spend the time with
my family than doing this. And I understand now what people
meant when they said, oh, gosh, I get it.
When you can't do it anymore. It kind of frustrates me that it
takes that to happen to you to understand that that's a thing
in real life that affects other people.
And I just think a little bit of empathy, right, If we just have
the baseline of it obviously doesn't affect how much of a
good teacher you are. And it's obviously fine to do.
That's a nice, you know, middle ground, I think.
And it doesn't matter what your home life is.
It doesn't matter if you've got kids or not.
I really, really, really dislike it when colleagues who have
children and I include myself in that now are seen as, oh, it's
OK, you don't have to do it. You've got a kid.
And then the onus switches on the other people who don't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I think that's completely
unfair. I think that's completely wrong.
And I think the kind of attitude of, OK, let's just have a
baseline that this is extra and it can be nice and it can be
lovely and it can be good for the children, but it can also be
extra. Volunteering down at the soup
kitchen is lovely. It's a really nice thing to do.
And I think if you go down to a food bank and help people out,
you're an amazing person, but you're not a bad person if you
don't. Yeah, right.
And I think it's the same kind of logic here of you're not a
bad teacher if you don't know, like, let's not actually just
say, oh, it's part of the job because it just isn't.
And a little bit of empathy, I think, to people's decisions and
life choices, I think goes a long way.
And if we just separate out, I guess what I'm doing here is
justifying why I stopped doing superhero.
Yeah, this is a really long winded way of saying I couldn't
bother to marinate superheroes anymore and put them on a wall
and tell kids that they can do their timetables.
So, yeah, well done. Dylan, you're a terrible
teacher. I think that's what we've
established here. Everything you've just said, all
the sentiment and just go back to.
Yeah, but you didn't do it, so you are just worse, right?
Dylan, I want to know what's in your cupboard because I can see
a few things here. I am quite curious as to what
you've got. So I brought a few things with
me because obviously all the funny bits were there.
I found an inflatable Flamingo, for example, like you know, that
was and the kids quite enjoyed actually me show.
I don't know. Okay, I don't know.
I think it's my job shares actually.
So because you got a job share, we got doubled the little
trinkets and little things also found like an old like bottle of
water, right, that I was looking for and it had water in it,
right? It's like bottle and on.
I remember buying that like 4 years.
Ago. Oh no, that's disgusting.
Yeah, that's disgusting. The water was fine.
It's water. Oh, was it?
Did you drink? It did.
You no, of course it didn't. It's been there four years.
Of course it didn't. So you, you found a little bit
of something in the back which maybe shouldn't have been there.
A few little treats, a few little treats.
But what I did find was a whole tray of books, right.
And obviously as teachers, we love books and it really brought
back memories and, and, and I didn't even know these books
that existed, to be honest with you.
And I thought, oh, this is so nice.
And I thought, what better way than actually just to do a
little shout on the podcast of a few books that I love for one
reason or another. So I'm going to go through three
of them right now. This first book, it's called The
House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson, and this was a
book that reminds me of COVID lockdown.
And you might be thinking, why is that a good thing, Dylan?
I'm thinking, why is that a good thing, Dylan?
Yeah. And the reason why it's a really
positive memory for me is because this is the book that I
read to the year sixes when they returned in COVID year.
So you might remember that when COVID first first happened,
March 2020, schools closed, obviously, but then the year 6
children were invited back in after a while of like the key
worker children being there for the last couple of weeks
essentially as like a transition because obviously they're going
to a new school in September. So just the year 6 children went
in and all the teachers went back to work and we had our own
small bubbles of children of year six children.
And it was to me, the ultimate kind of example of how teaching
can be absolutely amazing because it was me and 12 kids.
So firstly, it's like like smaller class sizes, which is
just so good. But we had complete freedom as
well. Like we had complete freedom
because it was, well, this is at this point bonus stuff.
Let's get through what we can. Let's do a lot of kind of
pastoral stuff because it's about transition.
So it was nice to work with the children like that.
But also actually I could really help each individual child
because I only had 12 of them. And also meant we had time to
just read for enjoyment. And I remember this book, the
House with Chicken Legs, because it was quite I haven't, I
haven't been used to teaching year 6.
So I get a lot of lower school books that don't really dive
into genres and maybe you can elaborate a little bit more
about how you broach that with children.
But this is a lot about grief. It's a lot about loss, It's a
lot about death. And I think the the main
character, Marinka, she is like the gatekeeper to the
afterworld. So she lets spirits pass through
and kind of enter the the peacefulness of the afterworld.
And it's all about like her destiny.
Like she's, she's got this job because it's her destiny.
It's written in the stars, which does she really want to do it or
not? And it really broaches like
basically death. And I remember thinking, gosh,
is this OK for children? Of course it is.
Of course it's OK for children. And I read it to them.
They absolutely loved it. They were hurt.
It's a really good story. What do you think about these
kind of like these genres almost, or these themes that are
a bit more mature? What kind of impact they had on
their children. Because they loved it.
I think that's exactly what they're for.
They are literally written to help children understand these.
Really like hard concepts in life.
It's not like I I get that we, we, we protect children.
I wouldn't read that to a reception class because they
don't really would be able to conceptually understand it yet.
But yeah, that's exactly what they're for.
I think they're great books and, and we often, I think a lot of
schools, we, we certainly do in our year 6 curriculum we built,
we tried to build in at least one book that does like approach
some of the, a subject like this, you know, like loss or
death or something, something that's just a bit tough where
it's, it's written in a sensitive way for children to
think about it and have discussions.
And I often have the best, most mature discussions with the
children about these things. I think that's part of school.
I think that's part of getting ready for secondary school and
wider life. Yeah, I find it interesting how
that just really stuck with me. I saw the front cover.
It's crazy that a book can do that.
And it did transform me back five years to that point in my
career where actually I really enjoyed that little bit of my
teaching, my teaching career, and I really enjoyed that.
But I always feel bad thinking about how I did actually quite
enjoy the teaching element during COVID because obviously
it was a devastating time in general.
So I always feel really like, can I say that I I enjoyed parts
of those because I shouldn't really say I should have enjoyed
any time of COVID. But I also had really, really
good experiences with the children, I think because they
were quite raw where it was like everything was just everything
was just chaos, right? It was, there was no proper
routines. It was like, oh, we've got to
get killed children in all those key workers in, oh, actually
we've got to do these bubbles. Well, actually everyone's coming
back in for a day because Boris Johnson thought that was a good
idea. Oh no, no, we're going off
again. And it was like, it was a bit
chaotic. But I tell you what, I had the
realist experiences with the kids like you did there reading
that book to them. That's probably not something
you would have done if we were just on timetable, you know.
Yeah, that's what gets lost and that's where it's a shame
really. And that's why I think I, I kind
of hope during COVID that those moments, we'd be like, Oh my
gosh, this is what teaching's all about.
This is where it's unbelievable. And I feel unfortunately, like
we kind of slip back into our old habits of, of trying to get
as much done as possible all the time.
These moments actually have the biggest impact.
I'll say one more thing on COVID, what should you get your
next book ready? That was one of my favourite
findings. And this is very local, so I
cannot actually make a huge generalisation about this, but
it is just interesting from our school was when I, when I had
the ES-60 that didn't take that didn't take their Sats, you
know, it was cancelled because they just missed so much.
We'd obviously done a mock SATS at some point in the year
leading up to it, just to get an idea of just for our own sake,
data points. They did really well.
And I remember being like, Oh, that's funny because we didn't,
we didn't do so much formal stuff, but we still taught them
obviously loads of stuff that we think is important, like reading
books, like we've read lots of stuff with them.
And we taught them the mass curriculum anyway.
And they just still smashed the test.
And I was like, Oh my God, look, surely there's surely there's a
message here somewhere. But, you know, maybe that was
just us. Well, you know, SATS didn't
happen for two years and those children are fine.
So I think it what what it does show, whether or not you land on
the side of we should or shouldn't be doing them or we
prepare too much or do little, blah, blah, blah.
What it clearly shows is that we don't need to do them.
Yeah, you know, we don't need them.
Like, they might be good for certain reasons, but they're
also, you know, having the view that we should get rid of them
is also completely valid because we have two years of data of
children not doing them. And like you said, they smashed
their previous stats when they did Marks and they learned
stuff. Still.
And they've missed. Loads of school, right?
It was like. Yeah, I I do think there's a big
impact on missing loads of school.
But I what I'm saying, yeah, I agree with you in terms of
currently when we were in school all the time, it's OK.
I mean, it's OK to think that we should maybe get.
Well, the message it gets, just to be really clear, I'm not
advocating we missed those at school.
The message to me was spending 10 minutes reading a book in
school instead of doing that like 19th task in the end of
your curriculum or whatever it is, you've done an hour and a
half of maths and you've got 10 more minutes.
You know what? I think we just need to calm
down about it like it is OK. We can actually allow children
to, you know, enjoy learning sometimes and not and not be
trying to measure something to the NTH degree and they can
still make great progress. It's OK.
Well, talking about reading in maths, my next book that I found
again transformed me back to honesty, like the second year of
my career right at the start. And we had a bit of training on
this and it was about using books in maths.
And this one really stuck out to me.
And again, I'm going to read out the title 1 is a snail, 10 is a
crab. Now if you are any kind of
remote interest in teaching maths and you're a primary
school teacher, you will love this book.
You will absolutely love this book because what it is 1 is a
snail, 10 is a crab. It's about number of feet.
And the amazing thing about this book, I love books where I feel
like you can pick this up in a key stage one class or in a year
six class and make the learning relevant.
So the idea is you've got 1 is a snail because a snail has 1 foot
and it says in brackets this is a snail's foot, which is just
the base of the snail basically. And then it goes on say 2 is a
person. So what do you think 3 is
Hayden? Something with three legs.
No, because that doesn't exist. Hayden 3 is a person and a
snail, yes. OK, so then we go to 4/4.
Is a dog good? SO5 must be a dog and a snail,
right? And you can see immediately if
you've got a maths brain on thinking about early years or
maybe a key stage 1, how good this is for odd and even.
Yeah, straight away, so good. You can just really visually
represent it as odd is an extra 1 on the even and you can match
up the rest of the pairs. But again, thinking of year six,
you can use this for algebra. Yeah, you can very easily
represent numbers with pictures here.
And I just think this was one of my favourite lessons I've ever
taught in my year 4 class, which kind of introduced the idea of
unknowns and algebra to them, but in a way which is really
engaging for them because we also read a really cool book.
If I remember rightly, it gets to the point where 10 is a crab,
right? And then and then it the book
carries on and it goes in like multiples of 10 exactly.
And it even does like I think it does the multiples of 10 like as
in like 3050 seventy. And it still carries on with
this idea of it's it's three, it's two crabs plus something.
Else, So it's more like it's plus one crab.
Yeah, that's right, yeah, plus one.
So it's like, you know, you have 10 dogs, it's 40, yeah.
Plus a crab, it's 50. And then you have 6.
You have 10 insects, it's 60, yeah.
Plus a crab, it's 70. So it's always that extra, like
1-10 or one extra. I used this book.
I did it in year 4 because I was with you at the time, but I also
used it a couple years, like years later in year 6 class.
And I did like a really cool algebra lesson with it.
And it was just, yeah, it's such a good book to inspire children
to just understand things. It's just fun, isn't it?
Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, and it's just, it's still
math. Let's just get this clear.
It's still math. Yeah.
You won't see in the curriculum. Oh, you must read 1 as a sound
turns to grab. No, no, no, no.
But it still explores parts of the curriculum.
It still allows children to show interest.
And actually, more importantly, it really LED some good
reasoning and problem solving. Yeah, because the math wasn't
too tricky, obviously for a year 4.
I know they can count the legs on an insect.
Yeah, I know they can count the legs on.
What wasn't doing that? We were exploring maths, we were
having fun, we were solving problems and we were stretching.
It it was an inspiration. It was an inspiration.
Exactly. And again, that's the kind of
thing we can't measure that it's not going to be on a Sats paper.
How many crabs in a snail is that?
It's not going to be on a Sats paper.
But the actual kind of, if we're thinking about the aims of the
national curriculum for maths, I think it hits that all the time.
And the last one, this one, the book with no pictures.
Yeah. This is written by No BJ Novak.
Why do I know that? Name he is Ryan from the Oh of
course, yeah, BJN over yeah, yeah.
So he wrote this. It's called The Book with No
Pictures and again, you can read this to any ear group and the
kids apps that you're hooked. I hope it's just full of the
Office memes. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. This.
This is all about how you're reading it, and it plays on the
idea that as a adult reading to the children, you just read
what's on the page, so there are no pictures.
So it's quite boring. It starts off so this is a book.
Yeah, it looks purposely very boring.
It might seem like no fun to have someone read you a book
with no pictures. And the and the kids at this
point are like, yeah, this is this is boring.
Why are you doing this one? It probably seems boring and
serious, except. And then it goes on to explain
how the book works. Everything the words say, the
person reading this book has to say.
So the person reading the book has to say.
And then as a teacher, you start, you know, acting up and
you're like, Oh, no matter what. And the kids are like, oh,
what's it going to say? What's it going to make my
teacher say? That's the deal.
That's the rule. So that means even if the word
say dot, dot, dot. And at this point, the kids are,
like, on the edge of their seats, like, they can't wait to
listen, block. And you just do random words.
Yeah, Yeah. And the whole idea is what?
Wait. That doesn't even mean anything.
Blurf. Wait a second.
What? This isn't the kind of book I
wanted to read. And it becomes you narrating the
book, but in a way where the children feel like you're being
taken on a ride. Amazing, fun, really short read.
Get it for your class. I I often used to read this on
transition day. Yeah.
So a nice little thing at the end.
Just have a bit of fun with the kids.
It doesn't take very long at all.
You can read it to any age group in primary and they are hooked.
That's really funny. That's really cool.
I've never seen that one before. I've seen the other two, but
I've never seen that before. Where?
Where did you find this? I just, I don't, I can't
remember. It's like I just just saw it
online. I think I saw BJ Novak himself
reading it to a bunch of children and I thought, this is
unbelievable. And it often gets recommended.
And I can absolutely vouch for that.
OK, Go and search on Amazon, any of these three books you got The
House of Chicken legs, 1 is a snail, 10 is a crab.
The book with no pictures. Fantastic for your class.
Recently, the brand new writing framework was released by the
government and it was put out to teachers everywhere.
Obviously got access to it. And we got a few messages
actually of people asking, are you going to go through this?
And I said, oh, well, you just wait and see because we
absolutely are. So we're going to talk to Jane
Constein a bit later on from The Right Stuff, who is a big voice
out there for writing in general, and she's a big
advocate for this writing framework.
And I think it's nice to see someone who's so positive and
speaks so highly about the impact that we can have on
children to improve their writing.
And that chat we have with Jane is going to dive into what
specific parts of this framework are going to be important in
implementing in schools especially, and why it can have
a real positive impact. But I do think we'd be doing a
bit of a disservice if we just rolled into it and said, yeah,
This is why it's fantastic because a lot of the discourse
around the writing framework has been mixed.
And I think we should start me and you by just talking about
the the early years. So, so this was a framework for
writing and it was for the whole of primary school.
But a lot of the push back and to be fair, a lot of the focus
has been on early years, foundation stage and getting
children writing earlier and getting it right at reception.
That was one of the big lines. What do you feel about that in
general? I think, look, I, I think people
have understandably looked at this framework and said there's
a lot of the stuff I kind of thought already and there's
clearly a huge push towards, let's just do it all a bit
earlier. This is how I, this is how I
feel like people have interpreted it.
Whether they read the whole thing or whether, whether they
just read that lovely summary that came with it, I don't know.
And they said children at four years old or three, you know,
four years old really, if that's not in reception and not
necessarily going to be in the right position to be starting
formal writing or handwriting or spelling or whatever.
Like some people even saying things like that, their bone
structure isn't even ready yet. And there was that picture that
went viral, wasn't there, of the, the, what was it like an
X-ray or something like that of people's of children's hands?
And people are using that to be like, yeah, so we absolutely
shouldn't be doing this. We should just be playing.
Yeah, yeah. Well, Cos look, play's natural
and and I saw, I saw one of the push backs to that was about,
well, we don't stop children from throwing a ball when their
bones aren't fully formed. That's a good point.
And and again, but a good point back again was, yeah, but play
and running and throwing, that's all natural stuff.
Writing isn't inherently a natural thing we do.
All you need to do is watch a kid hold a pen and you know,
it's not a natural thing for a child to do.
It is learned. And again, I think another
another point on that exact picture of the bones forming was
that's used in in the dog world when you mention how puppies
shouldn't be exerting too much pressure on their bones and
joints yet. And you need to look after them
and care for them and make sure they're not doing too much
because it helps with their bone fusion.
And everyone who's owned a young dog knows that that's something
you have to really look out for. And the whole point with that
person was saying, yeah, OK, yeah.
But look, this might be not the best time to be pushing when
children are still forming. To be pushing.
This idea of holding a pen? Sure.
And I'll be perfectly honest with you, I'm not really sure
what the science behind this is. Or even even like the example
you saying about playing is natural.
I get the playing is natural but is throwing the ball natural?
Like really so? But you get some kids get to
year 4, Year 5, and they're still having to learn how to
throw a. Ball, I guess you're you're
right in that OK if I put out. So I've got Rory, my son, yeah,
who's 21 months old. And if out on the floor quite
often, he just has a bunch of things out that he can play
with. He's replay, obviously.
I might have an extra sketch or something.
Do you know when you have a magnetic pen?
Yep, that's on the floor. I have some ball pit that he
jumps in and throws balls around.
He will happily run around, jump, throw himself off the
sofa. Yeah, that's not safe.
It's natural. So it's not necessarily just
because something's natural, it means it's safe, and it's not
necessarily something is unnatural, it's bad for you or
anything like that. I don't think those lines are
always clear, obviously, because if I left Rory to his own
devices, he'd jump head first into the corner of the table.
So it's not necessarily just because it's natural, it's.
Right. He absolutely would.
But my my point is naturally he'd go into the ball pit, he'd
jumped and go and he jumps in and it's his favourite thing
ever and he just flies around, flings things, picks up a ball,
throws it across the room. That's a good point, that's
natural. But in the same respect, he
walks over to a pen and paper or the magnetic pen and he starts
making markings on paper. That's natural to him as well.
And I suppose my point here is if we're thinking about this
framework, firstly, it's a framework.
It's not a curriculum. It's, it's more like an, an
idea, you know, a wider meta look at the science behind
writing and what might be the best ways to approach it.
The new curriculum's on the horizon and I think a lot of it
will overlap because of the people who've been working on
it, clearly. But it's just a framework and
it's non statutory. So I know it's going to be
pushed and I think it could have a lot of good in it.
I think it's a lot of stuff in their school should implement.
But, you know, just take it with a pinch of salt is essentially
what I'm saying. And I don't think I get the
worries. And here's my biggest push back
to it that just came to my head immediately.
There was the, when it was first released, I read through it and
I read the overviews and I read the criticisms and I read the
pros and the cons and I, I sit here, I think it's a positive to
be talking about writing in this way.
I agree. I think it's great to have
government written documents saying writing is really hard to
teach. I think teachers hearing that
that's a good thing because quite often with writing we just
expect to have a fantastic results immediately.
It is markedly harder than teaching anything else in my
opinion. So I think that's a really good
thing. And I think having lots of
guidance and help is a really good thing.
And I think the fact that they did consult with loads of
people, loads of different people, not one person, not two
people, loads of people who've dedicated their life to writing
clearly I think there wasn't one person who monopolised it.
There wasn't someone who took over.
And it's just like pure greed from them because they want them
to do what they want them to do. It was grounded from what I've
seen in research, and it was backed with voices of lots.
Of people, there are lots of opinions from other people.
Exactly. I think that's a really good
thing. But you know, OK, here's where I
see it. I think that's good, positive.
And I think I'll chat with Jane's going to really highlight
that. And I think people need to hear
that. I really do.
But I still look at it and I just think, look how many other
countries in the world don't start formal education until 678
years old. Yeah.
And are absolutely fine. And if anything is thrived,
Yeah. Where?
Really good point. Where play?
I'm so passionate about play. I feel like I'm not an expert
what whatsoever, but every time I hear someone talk passionately
about how important play is for learning, I can't believe how
quickly we take that away from our children.
I can't believe how quickly continuous provision is stripped
from our children and we're just getting behind, behind desks and
seats straight away doing formal work.
I think that I I don't like that now.
And now I've got my son, I think to myself, don't want Rory doing
that quickly. I want him playing.
I want him to learn through play because it's so powerful.
And those children in Finland, Scandinavia, wherever it might
be, who start work at 7, I think that shows.
It doesn't have to be that we nail writing and get it right in
reception. No, it doesn't have to be that
way. But I'd be curious.
I reckon there's a chance that we're being naive at that.
I reckon there's lots of facts to think about.
Like firstly, culture in general.
Like is it that the Scandinavian culture is just richer and
allows parents to do a lot of these things, maybe at home in
an informal way? And the reason that they can
start at 7 is because they're kind of already doing some of
that grunt work, that grunt work at the start, and they're
already exploring with their children how to write in things
and helping them with their handwriting just kind of
informally rather than in the classroom.
Like, I don't know, I don't want to jump to a conclusion
basically that other countries who start formal education a bit
later just because they get the same end result.
It kind of proves this idea that, oh, therefore, like, it's
clearly better just to let kids play longer because I just don't
know. Like, I don't know how many
other factors are in play there. Do you think about that?
I don't think necessarily it proves it's better.
I think it just proves that it's a different option we can
explore and it clearly works, right?
It might be better, it might, I don't know, right?
But my gut instinct is that I think it's better and I'm happy
to have someone come. I'd love to have someone come on
the podcast from the early years or who's passionate about play
to explain why it's better. But my gut instinct as a parent
is that is therefore I'd rather go down that route, OK, of doing
it later more formally and having more time to play.
And that's for the culture thing.
I I really, really passionately believe that it is not down to
the fact, oh, they're Swedish, so they do more of their kids.
Yeah. Oh, we're British, so we do.
So we do less. I think it's inherently down to
the structures of society. OK.
When you get better paternity, pay for the dad who can stay at
home more with their child and support the mum more of their
maternity pay and get more time with your children and more
support from the state, that is going to have a knock on effect
where you can do more at home with your children.
Whereas in Britain we are sliding more and more and more
down the path of what we've got to accept that I'm afraid that
most houses now are a dual income, a household where both
parents have to go off from work and yeah, OK, you're going to be
screwed with your childcare. Sorry guys.
Do you know what we'll do? We'll make reception writing.
Really good for you. Then I just think to myself,
it's such a shame that we've chosen this path.
And like you said, I'm not going to sit here and say this path is
inherently bad, but it's not the path I want to necessarily go
down. I guess what it opens up is just
the idea that sometimes it's so easy to be like, well, the
government said this is good, they've got all the back to
research for it within the constraints of our culture.
So this is the way to do it. And it's like actually, but
there might just be other ways. There might be other ways.
I think, I think this new writing framework on the whole
to make it really clear, I am generally quite positive about
it. I think there's probably a few
things in there that people have rightfully got gripes about.
But on the whole, I think this is a, it's a really good
document. And like you said, I want to
back this up. I think it's a, it's a move in
the right direction that the government are even talking
about or even taking the time to gather loads of experts and get
people together in a room and say, hey, should we like at
least try to address writing and what we could do?
And they've come up with a solution.
And it is non statutory, like you said.
So, you know, I overall, I love moaning, right?
We all have to moan as well. You know, half this podcast is
us just moan about the things that that we all want to talk
about, right? But I do think it's good to
recognise that there is a positive side to this.
It's not all bad. A lot of people in line are just
being like, oh, it's just terrible.
Like anything the government released, there are some people
in a band where it's like anything they say is
automatically by default, the worst thing they could ever have
done. And actually, if you just take a
second to look at it, there are also some really good positives
from this writing framework as well.
Yeah, I think that's I think that's a great, great line to
kind of finish on and lead into our chat with Jane, who who has
been involved in this, who has worked with multiple other
people who, you know, full transparency, she'll say
herself, she offers writing training and it's part of what
she is an expert. She's done it for so long.
And again, no matter which side of the fence you land on, I
think this chat is really, really insightful.
And actually, I think there are two prongs that you can look at
it here. One prong is like we can talk
about the scientific fact research and what's good for
children's do in terms of reading and have these
discussions about how early they should should do it, how late
they should do it, why it's right, why it's wrong.
I think the other part of it is do you know what?
There are some amazing people out there who are really
passionate about helping kids and when you're at the forefront
of your mind is how can I help children more?
I've immediately got respect for that person.
Whether we disagree or agree professionally, you'll think
there might be better ways to go about it.
That passion, that's the first step, isn't it?
And as professionals, we're always going to disagree.
But I think having those discussions with people who have
different views to you, I think that's really powerful.
And I think that's something we should do.
And we shouldn't just say, here's the framework, let's just
digest it and that's it. That's the end of it.
No, of course not. I think we can do both.
We can say what the great parts of it are.
We can discuss how we think there are some drawbacks as well
and have professional dialogues about it.
And I think what we're going to do now, chatting with Jane, is
talk to someone who's really positive about it and hear their
point of view. And I think that's invaluable.
Yeah, stay tuned. Let's talk with Jane.
We're here to talk about the writing framework.
Great. Thank you for having me and I'm
here to talk about it. So excited.
Right, let's go. Let's dive in because I am
really interested in this and especially your views.
So let's start off with a general question, I suppose.
What is your overall view of this brand new framework?
What are the big messages? OK, I am highly optimistic about
this framework, really positive because any document that puts
front and centre a chance for us as teachers and leaders to talk
about teaching and learning, well that is ace.
And it gives us a a sense and and you know, to be really clear
about what we want to do next around writing.
I I love it. And I think the main message
locked in it is that writing needs to be taught, not caught.
And we were given a lovely phrase as part of the reading
framework, reading fluency. And this opens the door for
children to be able to comprehend words.
And now it is only right and proper that we think about
writing fluency and helping children make their own meaning.
Why do you think this shift is significant then?
Because you're clearly championing it in the just in
the tone of your voice. I can tell you really positive
about all of this. And what are the implications
for the curriculum design if this is this is the way forward?
It's it's built on the science of learning.
So for us as teachers, when we feel like it talks to us, it's
because we care about the science of learning.
It was a broad and wide collection of specialists and
experts. This is collective
responsibility that writing matters.
And we're we're all in this together.
It has been transparent. And these are people who have
dedicated their lives to literacy and locked in there,
you know, and it's the opening words of the framework.
Writing is notoriously difficult, you know?
Yeah, Ronald Kellogg said. It's the cognitive equivalent of
digging ditches, you know? But it is hard, isn't it?
I think I wanted. To draw on the.
On the point you just made about all of these people who've
dedicated their lives to this work have come together to put
something in a document that we can, we can kind of at least
lean towards and read and, and, and like you said, talks to us
about how to teach writing well, because writing is really hard.
If I had to as a teacher, tell you which part of my job is the
hardest, I would absolutely, without a doubt, without even
thinking, say, getting children to write well.
And do you think then that this, this document promoting this
and, and putting, putting on a pedestal, I think and, and the
government kind of pushing reading and writing in general,
Do you think that this is going to cause a shift then in
education as to how we're actually teaching creative
writing now for the better? Absolutely, for the better.
You know, this is not about perfection, but it's about, you
know, our damnedest to put in one place the science of
learning and, and kind of opening a conversation about
kind of a pathway forward. You know, I've been working with
teachers for 25 years, you know, and I am an expert in teaching
writing and, and it is hard. It is really tricky and it and
you know, to carry on almost the analogy of digging ditches,
we've got to remember that if we can break that hard ground, as
it were, you know, something shifts.
You know, there's a mind shift. And in this document, it talks
about a writing mindset. You know, if you're digging
ditches, you know, muscles build, the tools become familiar
and it at the beginning for our little ones, God love them.
You know, it is slow and effortful, but down the line, it
becomes rhythmic and fluent. And this ditch it, it's we can
create a a channel. Ideas can flow and then we're in
the realm of shaping something. How exciting is that?
I love it, Jane. You're firing me up.
Like I feel like I'm. Getting I'm inspired.
I need to go do some writing. He's going to let's go teach
some writing right now. Absolutely.
But like, you know, you talking about the little ones, it really
made me think. And I think a lot of emphasis
has been on the little ones. And let's just talk about
reception for a minute. And, and those earlier years,
the framework sets out quite a clear role for a, for reception
in establishing that writing. Like you just said, if you get
it right from the start, you can kind of build and build and
build and build, which is what, how, how I feel like you're,
you're kind of approaching this, right.
So let's think about the young ones.
What, what should great writing provision look like in reception
classrooms? Year 1 classrooms.
No job it is more important than working with children in the
early years. You know, we we need, you know,
not in a negative sense. When I say this term enabling
adults, you know, enablers in a positive way, engaging, you know
what I mean? Engaging experiences and really
effective environments because ultimately we want our young
children to in their voice. We want them to have agency.
So they've got choices around their ideas, thoughts and
feelings. And believe you me, their their
fragile journey into writing. We've got to hold so sort of
dear. It is so precious.
In fact, we've got to foster a love of writing.
We've got to celebrate their writing.
It's got to be joyful. And we know we're living in an
era of word poverty that is linked to poverty, but writing
is playful. And, you know, and we want to
meet them where they're ready. We don't want them at tables all
day, you know, no way, no way. And it is vital that they leave
reception with with a with a positive view of themselves as
writers. White Broad in 2012, the
educational psychologist tells us you know it is at 5 if
everything's going tickety Boo that you know children have
increased working memory to hold an idea in their mind while
writing. Because that's what we're trying
to do. I mean, one way to say it, I
know this isn't really scientifically accurate, but you
know, what's in your mind's eye, what's your idea?
What's the pictorial form? And writing is like breathing
that out to put in that image on a page and then, you know, and
the readings, breathing it in. Yeah.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I, I love this analogy of
the the idea of what's in your mind and the link between the
reading and the writing. The thing that really jumped out
of me from this, from this whole framework, in fact all the way
through my reception, but starting in reception
particularly, was that linked to.
Oral, Oral, oral. Speaking, saying sentences out
loud. And I suppose what do you think
that role will have to be in a school from now?
Because I think teachers do it, but I think it's sporadic and I
think it's kind of sometimes we'll try it out or we won't.
It sounds as if that kind of oral work should be centre stage
for everyone and fundamentally part of how we teach writing.
Absolutely. You know this, you know, we are
so lucky that Voice 21 was part of the contributors for the
writing framework. And we know glinting on the
horizon, we're going to get a new curriculum and we also know
a beating heart of that. It's going to be oracy good,
absolutely. And talk needs to be elevated
and we've got to amplify, especially in reception, you
know, their little mutterings, their little moments, their odd
phrases. And then we need to grow it and
build it and this other recognition that, hey, you know,
this is hard for children. Talk isn't just, you know,
you're chatting to your friends and you can lob it on a page.
Yeah, we can if we're writing dialogue.
But actually, you know, writing has has a formality, has
cognitive structures, and it is different from talk.
And so we've got to help them talk in a way that gets them
close and very accurately close to building sentences, you know,
and they need help with that. And, and we need to not
sporadically, but model that in a, in a, in such a, a clear way.
And actually, it's just not me doing that.
That's, that's Mrs Gibb, you know, in my room and we're
always there. And I do want to just do a shout
out to my favourite film on the Education Endowment Foundation.
You know, there's lots of guidance there, lots of mini
moments, you know, when we can watch teachers in action, you
know, practically watch it and diagnose it.
This is this is where we become experts and and sharpen our
expertise. And there's a film on there that
analysis talk in the early years where we watch these talking
moments and we see really skilled teachers locking in with
children. You know, the eye contact is
just right. They're giving them space for
their words and amplifying them, repeating them, adding a little
bit more, you know, talking tennis, talking tennis and
growing it. And I Oh yeah, go and look at
films, you know? But that's what I don't know
about anyone else listening right now.
As a teacher, I fundamentally found every single thing that I
picked up from my practise that was good was actually mostly
from seeing the really good teachers actually do it.
And I suppose we're going to talk about modelling I think a
little bit in a minute, but I think what links nicely to what
we're talking about now in terms of oracy and then that link to
writing, I do think that links nicely with dictation and what
dictation might look like in the classroom.
It's mentioned throughout the framework as a core practise.
What? What then?
For someone listening now, thinking, OK, cool, I want to
implement this, I want to do this.
It's embedded in the science of writing.
I think it's been really good for my children.
What do you think makes dictation effective?
And most importantly, I think, what does it actually look like
in a classroom? What does dictation in an
English lesson, a writing lesson, actually look like?
And how does it affect a child's writing in a positive way?
This is an Ave that we can become more expert in actually.
And the first thing I want to say about dictation is I don't
want it to kind of overtake everything we do with writing.
You know, I don't think it's like the, the, the main thing,
it's kind of part of a repertoire of things we might
use deploy as it were, to activate their thinking.
Because of course, the main thing we want to do is get them
inspired, you know, and then because they're inspired,
because there's been this concentrated, rich, yielding
space to develop ideas, you know, music, drama, watching
films, photographs, books, interviewing people, you name
it, you know, we are excited to write.
We've got reason to write. Then it's that intersplicing of
dictation. And one of the ways I like to
think about it is taking the kind of cognitive load off
children so they can, they're, they're not at a particular
moment worrying about a specific idea.
We can say, look, just concentrate on your
transcription. You know, I want you to at this
little moment, you know, and we can make the focus different
things. Or if they're a bit older, we
could put them together. At this little moment, I want
you to concentrate on your handwriting or, or your spelling
or both. One of the little sort of
dictation devices I like to use is it's called brave spelling.
So we're in a writing moment. We've been really excited about
setting this scene. And this scene has got a moon
and we've, we've got our ideas, you know, flowing.
But now I might say to the children, right, we're going to
just have a go, almost like in context to bravely spell 3 words
with the same pattern. And we know spelling is tricky
when there is a double consonant and all these words mean big.
We're going to have a big moon. And then we just gently put a
little bit of sort of, you know, do you remember these words?
We met last week, bit of interleaf practise.
You might have forgotten them, but they're coming back, you
know, Colossal, it's got a double consonant.
What is have a go. We met it before.
Massive. It's got a double consonant, you
know, mammoth. So there's these little moments
where we want them to just, it's not about them generating those
ideas. They're having a go, you know,
add a add a bit of a tricky word, but it's a chance for them
to work on their transcription. I really like the whole idea of
brave spelling. I love that concept.
And I think we need more of that in teaching.
And like you said earlier, we need really, really strong
teachers at those early years. Because you're, you're kind of
highlighting how, I mean, I'm both inspired and thinking, my
God, it's such a tough job. It's so hard being at the
beginning of that journey, like thinking of reception, having
all of these ideas up your sleeve and being able to teach
writing so well. Now you mentioned spelling and
you also mentioned handwriting and I think we wouldn't be doing
this conversation justice if we didn't talk about this, right?
Because it's one of it's one of the gripes that we've seen
online. You know, with there's always
going to be gripes with anything that comes out that's new,
right? But one of the biggest things
was about handwriting and saying how can we get this right?
Because the framework is recommending that we should be
teaching formal handwriting and phonics based spelling from the
very get go at the start of reception.
So how do we get this right then for children who develop fine
motor skills at different rates? Because we know that exists?
Is it too early? It's all about readiness.
It's all about are they ready for this and, and us as teachers
being able to really tune into the uniqueness of individual
children and what they need next.
I am going to push back a bit on that word you kind of casually
slipped in, which is formal. You know, it's not about formal.
It's about knowing the sequential incremental things
that children need next. Because if they've got a smooth
and efficient handwriting style, then it can free cognitive
space, you know, that is absolutely critical.
And you know, when they've got their excited ideas about
dinosaurs or Sonic the Hedgehog or fork knife or, you know,
spray juice. Not everyone gets that joke.
I got it, Yeah. I've.
I've got young enough brain to actually.
Get that stuff. Yeah.
Says more about me, Jane, I think.
You know, if handwriting is slow, it can and it can't keep
up with their thoughts and ideas and they forget them before they
put them on paper. This can really hurt their self
esteem. So we're always making a
judgement to know, you know, almost like there's there's a
continuum, isn't there? You know, there are 9 stages of
emergent writing. And as a teacher, I know we
start with sort of drawing and then we move into, you know,
like just Marx in general. And then we move into scribbling
and then we move into like almost showing little lumps of
scribbles that show there's they can, they can conceptually
understand finger spaces. And then we start seeing, you
know, mimicking of letters ish, you know, and but we get this
line so that we know when is the timely moment to step in and go.
I think you're ready for this letter, the letter B and I've
got handwriting patters. I'm ready, you know, start at
the top, go down slow halfway up round you go.
Don't tell me there is a kids in Year 5 and 6 who were doing B&D
reverse. I can tell you now, Jane, there
are because I've I've I've worked with them.
But I think just jumping on what you're saying, there's one thing
I wanted to say as a statement that I think your proof that
this kind of positive, yes, let's go and get it, let's make
it amazing, can really inspire children.
And of course, that's one part of it.
This framework's full of science.
You know, you've clearly got lots of techniques that you've
learned over the years that really embedded in children
making progress. But it does feel like hand in
hand with that and with a framework like this and with
anything really that we as teachers see as good practise.
It does have to come hand in hand with professionals who are
putting themselves out there and and putting on that show and
inspiring children. Because to me, when I think
about my background in maths and leading maths, that's the one
thing I feel like I want my staff to have more than anything
is you need to love maths. You need to want to do maths
with the children. And when it comes to writing,
yeah, it's really hard. And you, we've just broken down
5 different parts of writing. Handwriting's one thing, phonics
is another thing. Reading is linked to writing.
It's so huge. But you have to go into the
classroom and be the person to inspire them at the front as
well. In AL's words, he, he talks
about, you know, and this isn't just about reception.
This is about perception and beyond, you know, we need to
nurture them and welcome them into a language community and
they need to feel part of this sort of this collective
belonging about that writing matters, that it cements our
ideas in our long term memory. And our job is to motivate you
because but actually motivation is born from success.
So my job is to make you succeed.
And I know the progression. My my curriculum is designed in
such a way that, you know, the smaller it gets, the more
granular it gets. Then I know in a timely way what
what children need Nets to make writing smooth and efficient so
that you can get to the joy. Hayden was going to talk a
little bit about sentence level stuff because we've we've done a
lot of work sentence level in our schools recently.
Well, the big thing for me is, is you said the word joy, right?
And it really got me thinking about my next question.
But is there you, you sort of flitted around this idea that,
yeah, we'll get to the joy, right?
Is there the the potential that with more of a focus on making
sure those foundations and that and that sentence level and that
vocabulary, all of that work. Is there is there a chance that
teaching could become a bit more dry, or a bit more, or a bit too
mechanical? Yeah, I mean, there, there's a
lot to say about this, you know, children being good writers,
children being able to write well, you know, this is not dry.
There's a couple of things we need to consider.
You know, knowledge. Knowledge makes for better
writing. Yeah.
And if they're trying to write with thin knowledge, that is
also sort of interlinked with the.
So I suppose the dryness, if they haven't got a enough.
So part of that is whenever they write, whether that's the mess,
the beautiful emergent, the beginnings of the starting to
find their voice, the more complicated extensive writing.
Wherever we are on that continuum, they need to know the
world of their writing and that deep knowing, you know, hey,
we've not come into this profession to be dry.
This is where we have we. We're not we.
No, not at all. Yeah.
Whoa. We we are all creative souls and
this is drama, music, film, This is experiences, real and
imagined. It's books, it's oracy.
And when we come to the teaching of writing, it is about
cognitive overload, that they need a deep knowing, but they
can't be overwhelmed. And This is why our work needs
to be at the mastery of sentences.
And and it's it's mastery, not mystery.
You know, writing is a highly creative process.
And the writing framework. I love these three little words
it, you know, go and find it go and find the gems.
Actually, that's what I'm doing. I've got me glittering girl
Sharpie highlighting the gems to be found in there.
But the three words it's these paint with words.
You know, the most creative painters first learn how to
paint. And creativity comes from
mastering these cognitive structures.
You know, the art of words is freedom.
And for 25 years I've been talking about taking off the
cognitive load, locking in what you're trying to locking in in
your mind's eye what you're trying to get on the page.
They have got with we're living the screen age.
We have got their digital lives, their frenetic lives, their
fast-paced lives. New research is coming at us
like a tsunami about their grasshopper mines.
And we need to lock it in. We need to slow it down.
And we know top of the science of learning charts is
metacognition. So we are going to really
sharpen their thinking for writing.
This is the progression exemplified.
It's the structures. You know, there are words
scattered all around us and we need to assemble them.
We need to assemble them sentence by sentence until our
writing takes shape. And why a sentence?
We graft there as a teacher. We help their thinking there
because that is about just enough for them to hold in their
little brains, you know? And that is why it's been so
powerful that you know, it is experts in the science of
learning. It is teachers, it is leaders
who care about literacy because we need to help children know
what to write, because sentences where meaning is yielded.
Because once we know what a sentence is, we can break the
rules and then we can write poetry in plays.
You've got to know it to play with it, you know, and, and
knowing the pathway and, and This is why I want to have a big
shout out to the appendices. You know, people are going on
about the the document, the words, but in the back, anything
that is practical is kind of helps us think about incremental
things that children need next and need next and need next,
kind of feeding into our responsive teaching.
Anything that we can lift off and push straight into the
classroom, you know, makes us better teachers.
This pathway makes us better. So I am going to push back on
dry. We're not going to bore them.
We certainly don't want to demotivate them.
We don't want anything that's going to hinder learning.
And we are going to in our curriculum culture, full
writing. We're going to get the wonder of
words woven into all of our work, and so that we can take
them to wondrous worlds beyond their limited borders of
experience, so they can now see what previously was unseen to
them. That is our job.
We need to help them see the beauty of writing.
I I couldn't agree more. I think it's unsurprising that
when you really think about it logically, the science of
learning and writing isn't really that different to the
science of learning anything else, is it?
When we think about maths, you know, we put maths the whole
time. It's just, you know what?
I, I would never go into a school and say, right here's
where you start. There's a bunch of reasoning and
problem solving on stuff they haven't done yet.
Obviously I wouldn't do that. We need the fluency and the
fluency needs to be taught regularly and really well.
And do you know what? Here is where I'm going to go
back. I agree, by the way, about the
dryness that you've really made me reflect on it.
Right here's where I think it actually lies for me.
I could teach a mass fluency arithmetic lesson really in a
really boring way. I could also teach the same mass
fluency lesson for arithmetic in a really fun, inspiring way.
And I, and I think it may be it boils down, maybe this dryness
boils down to an expectation that or, or a preconception that
that teaching at centres level work is automatically boring.
And I can tell you from my experience as a teacher over the
years, I've taught writing in loads of different ways through
various schools. And I'd say my spectrum goes all
the way from as many lessons as possible, really kind of
repetitive, genuinely quite dry grammar and punctuation tasks
that don't have much link to writing.
It's just this is a grammar objective.
So you've just got to teach this And just think of a task where
they can write it down as many times as possible in the same
way in their book. So they start remembering it all
the way to policies where we've basically said, let's, let's,
let's not teach stand alone grammar and punctuation as much
as humanly possible and integrate it within like fun
little paragraphs and pieces of writing and creative writing as
much as possible. So I've seen that whole spectrum
and, and I kind of just want to, I think I want to summarise, I
want you to summarise your thoughts now as to where you
feel like generally we should be on that spectrum when we're
teaching writing. For me, I've been working for
donkeys years with schools around learning chunks and in a
chunk for writing. We are going to foster with
children thesaurus thinking and and that's not just about one
word. This is, you know, chunks of
language, what we might need, we might need words, we might need
phrases, we might need clauses, we might need photographs.
You know, we, we need stuff for writing, you know, we want to
initiate the thinking for writing.
Well, and it's it's a bit, it's a bit Fat Boy slimness, but it's
right here, right. I can feel that coming.
If I don't have some music, I believe with that on.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're doing, we're doing
songs, kids. So let's break down that right.
Yeah. I mean it's.
Getting that language there so that when we are, and I'm going
to, I do really want to talk about modelling.
But when we are modelling, they have a shared insight with us.
You know, it's not about you being amazing.
Obviously we are amazing as teachers, we are amazing.
But it's, it's about, it's not about the performance of
modelling. Our oral duty when modelling is
as I am helping children see actually three things at once.
What is my locked in image? What is my for writing?
They are seeing the words come on the page live with a pen in
my hand. Whether that's electronic on a
visualizer or an iPad Cat, it doesn't matter.
A bit of paper, who cares? That's live.
But then there's this articulation, this articulation.
But when they're seeing those 3 layers of of watching a model
being produced, they when I talk about C, we had that word
earlier, they see as in have insight with me of all the
options. That's your job, isn't it?
Get them to see it. Exactly.
Yeah, I completely agree, Jane. I think I think modelling is
really important. It's something we've pushed a
lot. Again, just I'm talking
personally in our schools and we've seen how effective it can
be. And I suppose just to, to, to
wrap this up, I guess in, in a nice package for, for leaders
who listen for, for teaching staff for this and, and want to
go away and say, have you seen the framework and, and someone
says, no, I've not seen it. You're like, what?
You need to see this, how, what, what do you think?
Now? Then are the next steps?
What's the role of an English subject lead out there or school
leadership in general to bring this framework to life?
Now what? What's the next step come
September? What can they do in schools to
actively improve writing through this framework?
Number one, top of the charts, modelling and us thinking about
modelling never ever stops. Modelling is teaching, Modelling
is fundamental and this reveal in real time, we've got to get
so good at that. We can't do that on the fly.
We've got a plan for that. We've got a plan the
misunderstandings. We've got to predict what the
problems are. It's not about us writing in an
adult way. We're doing deliberate mistakes
because it's their problems we're feeding them in.
We're doing full starts revisions, and we are
illuminating the world of the expert thinker.
Because you know what? We are great.
We are experts. And when we nurse our Ects into
our school, it is our job to pass on that expertise.
Modelling. It's not PowerPoint paralysis.
It is showing the invisible, which is thinking.
We want them to notice it. We are articulating, we're
explaining, we're illuminating a window to our mind.
This is where we're unpacking things.
We are thinking out loud. This is all of the meta
linguistic talk. We need to be authoritative
because we know they need this. Next, it is strong, dynamic,
whole class teaching and we are constantly doing without
confusing them. The drop down menu.
It could be this, it could be this, it could be this.
Anything that is closed procedure is narrowing.
This is an open running up of your thinking and your hard
thinking. But you know, what do you know
for leaders? Oh, my goodness, you might be
tired. You might be tired.
What? You might.
I've become hysterical. This, You know when you start
crying and you don't even know why you're crying.
What's happened to me this? Morning.
Yeah, but I'll tell. You, this, now leaders have to
animate this framework. You know, these words, these are
words, aren't they in the framework for us?
But we've got to lift them off the page and we have to enable
children to have their words in their books.
It is not dry. It is not formal.
It is our role to make it rich, enticing, and I'm going to say
forensic and purposeful. We can't rush.
We, we can't rush. This isn't like I'm, I'm talking
in a very urgent way because I am urgently excited about it.
But believe you me, this is going to percolate in my mind
for a long time, as it should for all leaders of schools and
writing. I mean, we must cogitate over it
and we must lean into it. I don't think I want to have
conversations with people who haven't read it or know how much
it's rooted in the science of learning And good leaders will
will bridge will bridge that non statutory guidance, but actually
be hopeful about it and and bridge it over into good
writing. We need to prioritise staff
training because there is so much to talk about to improve
our practise. We've got to model a belief in
the importance of sentenced nurse because anything that gets
too big, we are in the realm of cognitive overload.
But sentences can come in quickly and they can breathe
into paragraphs. We've got to protect time for
oral composition, high quality editing and feedback on what is
that in all its forms and lead us.
Oh my goodness, no matter how tough it gets, we know this.
We've got to stay close to the classroom practise so that we
are seeing, we are seeing and know the next steps.
So I do think this begins the conversation of clarity around
writing. Hey, and you know, there are
things that could be said differently or the nuance could
have a different lens, but I think anything that starts the
conversation is really powerful. And if you're if you're in a
right stuff school, you'll be doing a lot of this already.
But lead us, set the tempo. And if we, this is my last point
I'm going to make. If we value quality over
quantity and purpose over performance pressure, then this
this document is for you. Brilliant.
Thank you so much, Jane. I must admit, just from a
personal level, as someone who looks at this framework, maybe I
fell into the bandwagon a bit and I was a bit impartial.
I was like, oh, I don't know, it seems all right, but I don't
know. This is, I've been doing lots of
this stuff already. Some of this stuff I don't know
about, but hearing a professional speak about it and
someone you know is in in the writing world as you, which I
don't think many people are much more in the writing world than
you, right? I'm passionate.
I'm passionate about it. I do really feel more optimistic
about it now. And I'm actually very glad we
had this conversation because I definitely would have slipped
into the to the hype online of oh, well, yeah, there's some of
these things I don't like that and I don't do this.
And no, this is dry. And then, you know, you
challenge that idea of dryness really well to the point where I
genuinely completely disagree now, whereas before I was a bit
like, oh, maybe it could be a bit dry.
So yeah, I. Appreciate what is dryness?
Honestly, it's down to the it's down to us as well as stuff like
you think the math thing's perfect.
How, how actually boring is it teaching children repeatedly to
add 3 past 10? Like, let's be honest, OK, it's
as boring as you make it, but you can make it fun.
You can make it interesting. And ultimately when you want to
get the children writing you, if you all know it's difficult and
hard and long term, like you said, the thing I want to see is
leaders in schools not falling into the trap of new guidance
right tomorrow. It needs to be perfect.
I'm gonna change everything. It's not going to happen.
You're going to do it badly if you do it quickly.
So go slowly, Train your staff, implement almost that passion
and that writing culture. You can't implement a culture in
two days. No, you cannot do that.
Like you said, it's this is the beginning, right?
And I will just say for our listeners that that maybe we
have a lot of ECT listeners. It took me genuinely my whole
career, 10 years to even properly get my head around what
actual good modelling was. It's not something I learned at
the beginning of my career. It's not something I even
learned in mid career. I was told to do it all the way
through. Each got a model, but I never
really understood it. And the one thing I would say,
if you're listening, think I want I want to action just one
thing in my school. I'm just very much reiterating
what Jane has just said. Get some training in with
modelling a proper training. Don't just let your head teacher
say, I've read the framework and it definitely says we should
model more. So everybody model more because
it doesn't work. I spent nine years of my career
being told to model more and not really understanding what it
was. And I had one really good
training and it completely transformed my perception of
what actual modelling was. And like you said, it does need
to be planned. It's not just going up to the
board and just, you know, on a whim doing a couple of sentences
and getting them to tell you everything to write it it.
So different so. Yeah, really reiterating that
point, Get some modelling training booked in for sure.
Yeah, Jane. And hey, I love, I love training
on modelling, you know, so you know, I'm.
Inviting someone here. Yeah, hey, I've loved, you know,
and I and actually we keep learning in life, don't we, all
the time about how we can make it more expert for our children.
You know, I am so delighted that you've given me a chance to
share out about the gems in here.
It's an exciting time and actually a big message as well.
You know, it's not revolution, it's not babies out with bath
waters. It's evolution and it's really,
it's refining and sharpening. You know what?
What do we want to interrogate and make a little bit better and
then really better and great and then brilliant.
Let's do it. It's exciting.
Jane, thank you so much. We hope you enjoyed that chat
all about the brand new writing framework and more importantly,
we would love to hear your opinion on it.
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