Literacy with Miss P

You will find my contributions to this book within Chapter 16 – Creating Inspiring Displays. This chapter was written and edited by Anthony Barlow. It is based on my original blog post about Harnessing The Power of Working Walls.

“Sadie notes that when she started teaching, it was easy to confuse Pinterest-perfect classrooms with those that had an impact on learning. With thought and planning, an effective classroom environment is used as an interactive support to engage children in discussion and promote independent learning through accessible tools and scaffolding. Sadie
argues that a working wall can model, celebrate, and to explain the writing journey. It is not a static display that celebrates what’s finished; working walls are a perpetual ‘work in progress’ that adapts and grows: Modelling of writing, images, key vocabulary, and prompts quickly pinned as you go.”

Inspiring Primary Learners offers trainee and qualified teachers high-quality case studies of outstanding practice in contemporary classrooms across the country. Expert authors unravel and reveal the theory and evidence that underpins lessons, helping you make connections with your own practice and understand what ‘excellent’ looks like, within each context, and how it is achieved.

Illustrated throughout with interviews, photos, and examples of children’s work, it covers a range of primary subjects and key topics including creating displays, outdoor learning, and developing a reading for pleasure culture. The voice of the practitioner is evident throughout as teachers share their own experience, difficulties, and solutions to ensure that children are inspired by their learning.

Written in two parts, the first exemplifies examples of practice for each National Curriculum subject, whilst the second focuses on the wider curriculum and explores issues pertinent to the primary classroom, highlighting important discussions on topics such as:

1. Empowering communication through speaking, reading and writing (Deborah Reynolds, Sarah Smith and Kat Vallely)
2. A Teaching for Mastery Approach – Primary Mathematics (Gemma Parker)
3. Science: Children as inventors (Adewali Magaji, Lorraine Smith and Michelle Best)
4. How ‘messiness’ in Design and Technology can inspire creative teaching and learning (James Archer and Rachel Linfield)
5. Putting the human back into the Humanities (Alison Hales)
6. Painting a Canvas of Creativity (Ashley Brett)
7. Music: Composing, Performing, Listening and Structuring (Mark Betteney and Kay Charlton)
8. Physical Education and Health Education (Kristy Howells)
9. Computational thinking and technology enhanced learning (TEL): the power of computing in the primary classroom (Poppy Gibson and Megan Brown)
10. Inspiración y oportunidad: purpose and strategies for teaching Modern Foreign Languages in the primary classroom (Poppy Gibson and Talia Ramadan)
11. Religious Education – a creative freedom to teach innovatively (Robert Morgan)
12. Relationships and Sex Education (Richard Woolley and Sacha Mason)
13. Reading for Pleasure (Roger McDonald)
14. Writing for Pleasure (Felicity Ferguson and Ross Young)
15. Creating a Dynamic and Responsive Curriculum (Janet Moris and Rachel Wolfendale)
16. Creating inspiring displays (Anthony Barlow)
17. Outdoor learning (Michele Best, Adewali Magaji and Lorraine Smith)
18. Pedagogy for imagination (Roger McDonald)

This book is available to buy from Routledge, HERE.
Paperback £26.99