Story telling

A Christmas Gift

Who doesn’t enjoy hearing a story at any age? At Christmas time many will enjoy receiving a good book to read and the art of story telling should never be underestimated. As teachers we can all use stories to engage and capture pupils’ attention. Hywel Roberts in his book ‘Botherdness’ talks about the importance of getting children bothered about their learning. He has many video clips that illustrate his philosophy for learning here’s one below.

Bing Videos

If you have a few hours to spare over the Christmas period, you may enjoy his podcast with James Mannion – Warning it is 4 hours 4 mins long but well worth a listen!

How to make classrooms feel warm and alive, with Hywel Roberts and Tim Taylor
Rethinking Education

This episode features an astonishing conversation by two remarkable educators, Hywel Roberts and Tim Taylor. Tim kindly stepped in as a guest host for this episode, to explore some of the big ideas that underpin Hywel’s excellent book, ‘Botheredness’: Stories, stance, pedagogy.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/rethinking-education/id1546512828?i=1000697662107

Here’s an example from Hywel Roberts’ book ‘Botherdness’ where he uses the phrase ‘Let’s say’ which I’ve adapted slightly. And then off we go to another world of engaging discussion and deep-thinking developing vocabulary and invested learning.

Second world war.

Let’s say we live in a prosperous town in South Wales. The year is 1939. The trouble in Europe does not really affect our lives. We have a factory in town where most of the men work, and we have all the shops we need on our main street, the butcher, the grocer, the haberdashery. The bookshop and many more. This is a great place to live and work. The factory is the beating heart of the town and is owned by a decent gentleman who looks after his workers.

A narrative hook

People The people of a prosperous town in the summer and autumn of 1939

Place A prosperous town in South Wales

Problem War is coming

Open questions to encourage discussion and develop oracy and thinking skills

If we live in 1939, what don’t we have?

Research life between the wars – what was it like in 1939?

What was happening in Europe what concern was it of ours?

Have towns changed much since 1939 What we might not see now

What would a high street look like in 1939? What shops would we see?

What would young people do at this time? What was school like? How old would you be when you started work.

Map out the town using mapping.

The challenge - Try it in January! It really can be adapted to all areas of learning and all ages with a little thought!

And leaders, how about starting a planning meeting with the term ‘let’s say…..!

Happy Christmas and many thanks to every teacher and leader who works so hard to make a difference in the lives of pupils and young people!