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Product reviews for Opening Doors to Quality Writing
Warren Glew, Deputy Head at Overton CE Primary School, a National Teaching School and the lead school of the Aspire Teaching School Alliance -“ Testimonial for the Opening Doors to Quality Writing series' ERA 2017 submission
Bob has not only helped us open the door for children to discover, appreciate and explore poetry and prose, but he has opened the door for our teachers: showing us what is possible when we teach without limits.
Overton CE Primary has had the pleasure of working with Bob over the last few years. As soon as the head and deputy heard Bob talk about the search for excellence and how we can and should allow more room at the top for more children, we were convinced the teachers at our school would be both inspired and challenged.
We invited Bob to run a two-day course for local teachers and our English team to explore the innovative principles and structure of the series which effortlessly combines learning theory and practical resources. Teachers at the session all agreed the units of learning in the book were ready to use directly with the children but they also provided invaluable support, commentary and top tips as the journey unfolded. An open-ended approach of the series impacted on teachers' creativity, stimulating the design of their own innovative learning journeys. The impact on the children's writing was clear to all when the teachers shared and reflected on day two.
The success of this course inspired us to host, through our Teaching School Alliance, a whole-day course. The day was attended by 42 delegates from 17 Hampshire schools. Bob's two latest titles were now published and he was able to draw on units from the whole series, introducing both new and returning delegates to engaging strategies as the stimulus for excellent learning.
The Opening Doors series was at the core of Overton's English whole school development this autumn term. A key approach to the continued professional development of our staff has been Lesson Study with teachers collaboratively planning, delivering, analysing and adapting a series of lessons in order to refine and develop their practice. Bob's approach and principles were further examined in a staff meeting following the INSET day. Each year group identified a high quality text and planned a lesson which incorporated the structure advocated in the series: access strategies, text revealed, opening questions, and providing contexts for writing. Whilst the one teacher taught the planned lesson, the other teacher observed and noted the impact on the learning. This then informed the planning of the second lesson which was designed to build on and refine the key outcomes of the first lesson.
A further staff meeting was arranged to allow all the teachers to reflect on the impact of the approach from the Opening Doors series.
All year groups noted the impact on children's learning AND their own teaching:
-˜All the children were engaged and desperate to find out what the event from the clues was -¦ Deeper links and thinking were evident through the use of Bob's access strategies.' (Year Five team)
-˜The javelin questions challenged the children's thinking and led to some of the excellent responses we had hoped for ... There was clear impact on the writing with children producing quality and thoughtful responses.' (Year Two team)
'The “Explore and Explain” learning pathway was successful; children of all attainment levels matched the -˜excellent responses will' and even went further at times. The Taster Draft was of a much higher quality than usual. There was a 100% engagement and they enjoyed the challenge of the Dickens quotes.' (Year Six team)
We are still at the early stages of embedding the approach into the teaching and learning of English but we now have strategies and a growing toolkit to help our teachers improve on their previous best in order to continue opening doors for children.
Overton CE Primary has had the pleasure of working with Bob over the last few years. As soon as the head and deputy heard Bob talk about the search for excellence and how we can and should allow more room at the top for more children, we were convinced the teachers at our school would be both inspired and challenged.
We invited Bob to run a two-day course for local teachers and our English team to explore the innovative principles and structure of the series which effortlessly combines learning theory and practical resources. Teachers at the session all agreed the units of learning in the book were ready to use directly with the children but they also provided invaluable support, commentary and top tips as the journey unfolded. An open-ended approach of the series impacted on teachers' creativity, stimulating the design of their own innovative learning journeys. The impact on the children's writing was clear to all when the teachers shared and reflected on day two.
The success of this course inspired us to host, through our Teaching School Alliance, a whole-day course. The day was attended by 42 delegates from 17 Hampshire schools. Bob's two latest titles were now published and he was able to draw on units from the whole series, introducing both new and returning delegates to engaging strategies as the stimulus for excellent learning.
The Opening Doors series was at the core of Overton's English whole school development this autumn term. A key approach to the continued professional development of our staff has been Lesson Study with teachers collaboratively planning, delivering, analysing and adapting a series of lessons in order to refine and develop their practice. Bob's approach and principles were further examined in a staff meeting following the INSET day. Each year group identified a high quality text and planned a lesson which incorporated the structure advocated in the series: access strategies, text revealed, opening questions, and providing contexts for writing. Whilst the one teacher taught the planned lesson, the other teacher observed and noted the impact on the learning. This then informed the planning of the second lesson which was designed to build on and refine the key outcomes of the first lesson.
A further staff meeting was arranged to allow all the teachers to reflect on the impact of the approach from the Opening Doors series.
All year groups noted the impact on children's learning AND their own teaching:
-˜All the children were engaged and desperate to find out what the event from the clues was -¦ Deeper links and thinking were evident through the use of Bob's access strategies.' (Year Five team)
-˜The javelin questions challenged the children's thinking and led to some of the excellent responses we had hoped for ... There was clear impact on the writing with children producing quality and thoughtful responses.' (Year Two team)
'The “Explore and Explain” learning pathway was successful; children of all attainment levels matched the -˜excellent responses will' and even went further at times. The Taster Draft was of a much higher quality than usual. There was a 100% engagement and they enjoyed the challenge of the Dickens quotes.' (Year Six team)
We are still at the early stages of embedding the approach into the teaching and learning of English but we now have strategies and a growing toolkit to help our teachers improve on their previous best in order to continue opening doors for children.
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17/02/2017 00:00
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