Product reviews for Uncharted Territories

I have purchased 35 copies of this book to date, which are being used across two schools. The thing with this book is that it makes entirely possible what many schools consider impossible in the current educational landscape: it presents schools with solutions to providing the -˜broad and balanced curriculum' which, as an education system, we never should have abandoned. Some school leaders, in this culture of fear, have been fooled into thinking that the purpose of education is simply to pass SATs tests, when this is only a fraction of what we should be aiming for. The resulting tendency in schools has been to focus on filling children's heads with knowledge to regurgitate in a test at the expense of their imagination, critical thinking skills and love of learning. Leaders and teachers have felt that they -˜can't' teach in innovative, creative ways any longer whilst ensuring children acquire the knowledge they need. This book unashamedly says that they can and presents many accessible and brilliant learning opportunities. Furthermore, it is accessible to NQTs, experienced teachers and those least confident in their own ability to plan and teach creatively.

A further way in which this book is innovative is the ease in which it shows how values can be threaded throughout a school's curriculum. Often values are taught as an -˜add-on' through assemblies or PSHE lessons. This book teaches us to look for opportunities to teach values through every possible curriculum area - it will train teachers to think in this way and to not miss obvious opportunities to build teaching and learning on values such as responsibility and compassion.

Finally, reading Twitter could lead you to believe that knowledge can only be acquired through traditional -˜chalk and talk' teaching methods and that anything else is progressive and therefore woolly. I can safely say the results I have seen in the classroom from using this book firmly prove that so-called -˜progressive' approaches result in children developing a thirst for knowledge which might otherwise have been crushed out of them.

In primary schools, we perhaps shy away from more difficult topics such as bereavement. Uncharted Territories is peppered with ways in which to have these discussions with young children - for example, the chapter on -˜The Graveyard' offers several ways in which teachers can consider this topic within the realms of children's imaginations. The book takes the fear out of how to get children thinking deeply about global issues and therefore quickly takes them to a place of immersion where writing and finding out more becomes irresistible. A recent example of the use of this chapter at our school was in the teaching of World War One. Teachers of children across the school were able to take the ideas from this chapter and adapt them to plan lessons which resulted in some of the most empathetic writing (from the trenches to their -˜families') I have ever seen. The writing reflected not only the children's knowledge of this period of history but also a depth of compassion for the soldiers and their families that might not otherwise have emerged from a different approach.

At our school, we aim to educate wise, skilled, compassionate citizens. Uncharted Territories contains so many gems to help us do this and is written in such a way that once you have used it, it fundamentally changes the way you think as a teacher and a school. Contained within its pages is the power to move away from believing that planning is about filling in boxes and towards being able to plan lessons that children will be absorbed by. It saves teachers' time not because it contains all the answers, but because it opens up our imaginations and makes us braver; it brings us to planning -˜flow', rather than Sunday afternoon frustration over how to make our lessons interesting and engaging. This book contains what we need to ensure that our educational aims are met. It gives us so many starting points into otherwise  -˜dry' national curriculum objectives that we can't fail to deliver magical, memorable and engaging lessons. It just sparks teachers' imaginations and opens up possibilities for planning which don't exist in regular schemes of work or in internet searches.



Uncharted Territories has the power to change the way people think and to open up long-forgotten possibilities in education. It is a book that will reset us all and get us back to thinking about how we can lead schools that fulfil their true purpose.