WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com to report problems. Thank you everybody for coming out tonight and probably what is the last week of term for many of you? So I can imagine you are all on countdown now to the summer holidays and probably feeling very knackered. Um, so to give up some of your time in the evening, we're really big appreciation to you. Um, so I'm really excited tonight to be introducing Hall Roberts. Um, and I'm a big fan of his work. I've got his book here beside me, I'll show you and probably he'll be talking a little bit about that later on. Um, but the great thing about Hul is that he's actually been a teacher, been in the classroom and still does spend lots of time in the classroom. So, um, we were just chatting a minute ago about, um, the fact that Hul was really wanting to stay working with the children and there was that kind of progression that he could go up through the management levels but not be with the kids. So he's gone down a little route now and um, he's doing lots of conferences, still working with children in the classroom, has a massive focus on creativity, which is what interested us in the first place. Um, author of many books, which we will be talking about. Um, and also has got a huge passion for story which really resonated with us here at Tell's Toolkit. So I'm really interested to hear this webinar tonight and I'm gonna hand over to you now who Thank you. I'm excited to hear what you've got to say. Thanks very much, Kate. Thanks a lot. Hey, good evening everybody and well done for turning up, uh, at the allotted time. Um, this is the only second time I've ever done one of these, but I'm gonna do my best and I hope that's gonna be all right with you. Um, you can see, you can put little comments on in the chat section down there if you think I need a bit of encouragement just to just write something in there if you want. Otherwise I'm just gonna go through, uh, some stuff that I've found out recently. I've called, uh, the presentation tonight, seven Stories. 'cause I think tonight just in the short webinar, I think I've got about seven stories to tell you. There may be more, there may be less. Um, I'm up for having some discussion. We'll do. So we're gonna leave time for questions at the end. So if you've got some questions for me that aren't too hard, uh, 'cause it's the end of term for me as well. Um, then put them in that, uh, put them in that chat box and I'm sure, um, Kate will pick 'em up and we can, she can ask me them properly towards the end of the session. It's absolutely meant to be able to do this. So I'm gonna do my best and I hope you can all hear me and you can all understand me. Uh, my name is, uh, uh, Howell Roberts, ELL Roberts. It's, um, it's a good Welsh name. And I, um, I've been a teacher, actually I'm 25 years a teacher, uh, this year. And I've been freelancing as a teacher, as a traveling teacher, actually, uh, for the last, it's nine years. It's the 10, it's 10 years since I left full-time, um, teaching. And in that time I, I have written some books. I have got myself involved in all sorts of projects and what, what they all have in common is that they are education based. They are curriculum based. But at the center of everything that I do is, um, the child, uh, children and no matter how old they are. And so, um, recently I've been doing a lot in the Welsh curriculum, for example, because they're doing a big innovation in Wales. And I dunno if we've got any colleagues and friends from Wales watching this tonight, but Wales are doing some interesting stuff. The invitation to teachers in Wales has been very interesting. In England as always, we have the pressure of trying to be the greatest education system in the coun in the world, sorry. And it's an education system that's copied everywhere. Um, but actually when you're in it, I dunno how you find it, but when you're in it, it's actually really quite hard and it's, it's difficult. And one thing, well, I'm gonna talk about this a bit more shortly, but one thing that's really squeezed all the time is that c word creativity. Um, creativity is squeezed. We had a bit of a creativity revolution, I don't know, about 13 years ago when Sir Ken Robinson, the brilliant Ken Robinson did his, uh, big creativity Ted Talk. And then suddenly, um, creativity was on the agenda. It then soon fell off the agenda and it was up to teachers on their own, in their own classrooms to decide how creative they could be with, um, their curriculum. And I think that's where a lot of pressure has come from. Um, some of us, some of you are naturally creative. You can see the creativity in everything. You can think of, perhaps lots of different ideas to share. Um, a piece of complex curriculum with a, with a a young child, you can think of lots of ways of doing it. But for every one of you, there's gonna be 10 adults I think who really struggle. And that's why we've had a boom in online resources, which are brilliant. Obviously Tales toolkit being part of that. Um, but we also have, if we're not careful, uh, a strange crushing, a strange crushing of what I would call the professional imagination. So in the time I've got with you tonight, and I know you like this, I hope you like this Anyway, I want to talk about how do we keep creative and professional imagination alive. So just, um, a little bit about me. This, this is a picture that, um, that's the reason I I wanted to become a teacher. Uh, and that film is 30 years old now. So it was 30 years ago. I went to the pictures with my pal and we came out the cinema, and I, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. The expectation was that I would pass my A levels with flying calls and go to university. I was a bit worried that I wasn't gonna pass any A levels 'cause I was far too interested in other things. Um, but when I saw this film, the Film's Dead Poet Society, I realized that what I really wanted to be was a teacher of literature in an American private school in the 1950s. And I realized very quickly that wasn't going to happen. I did want children to, uh, carry me on the shoulders and rejoice at, um, put the poetry that I was sharing with them, the literature I was sharing with them. Uh, and pretty soon I found out that that wasn't gonna really be much of a thing because, uh, I found myself teaching in, in West Yorkshire and then South Yorkshire quite, quite tough schools in their own way. And, uh, every day was pretty much like this that you can see in front of you now. It was a bit like being p to death by seagulls, but it, and it was hard. And I think part of the problem was I was teaching the way I'd been taught. I went to school in the eighties and it was a very sort of straightforward, um, pedagogy at that time. Sit down, shut up, write it down, copy it off the blackboard, learn it, and I'll give you a test next week. That was pretty, I think that was probably about 70% of the curriculum. Um, stories and storytelling weren't part of it until, and that's from a teacher of literature. I was secondary, but part of it was, um, I realized was because I was just totally fixated on what I needed to cover in the curriculum. And yet the, the greatest joys I was having in my classrooms was when actually we were swapping stories, when we were finding things out about each other, uh, as teachers, as students, as part of a community really. Um, fast forward a few years and we rebuilt our key stage three curriculum based on narratives. That's a key stage three. And particularly, um, using a process, which some of you will have heard of, um, a process pioneered by Dorothy Heft, um, mantle of the Expert, which is a, a drama process, but it's much more than that. It's very, it's in some ways it's very complex. In some ways it's very straightforward. Uh, to sum it up, responsibility is given to children for their learning. The mantle of expertise is handed on to children, but I'm not doing a, a, um, a webinar about that tonight. Um, but stories are very important inside mantle of the expert. What I learned when I taught that was when I taught in that way in key stage three, was that as a teacher, I had to shift my stance. I couldn't just be that stiff adult in the front of the classroom. Actually, what I needed to do was be able to move around a bit, maybe stand here, maybe have to go and stand over there more often than not, standing with the children, with the chil sorry, with the children either side and actually having conversations with them, which I'll be honest, it doesn't sound very innovative that now, but in, in 19 97, 98 at my school, it was hugely innovative. Some would say even Maverick, but I wasn't the only one doing it in the last year or so. I've, I've, I've been doing academic research based on storytelling and, and, and, uh, how do we get children from engagement to investment, which I may come back to if we time. Um, but one of the big things I've, I'm still thinking about now through my work is that idea of, of stance. Um, and that's been a big learning point for me this year. And something that if you like, when when I finished up my, my, um, my secondary school, when I decided, you know, nine, 10 years ago that I wanted to go and find out what was going on in primary, I wanted to go and find out what was going on in infant schools. And I wanted to go and find out what was going on with our younger children. I'd been working with, um, you know, key stage three and four, um, where I ended up actually was in special setting in, in Pru pupil referral units, uh, with the children, um, the children whom mainstream couldn't cope with. Um, and what I spent my time doing there was, was building curriculum, um, that mattered to those children. So covering the coverage, and this is where my mind expanded a bit, covering the coverage, um, and yet thinking all the time about how do we hook children in and protect children into te into learning, particularly those children who are operating, you know, at the edges, at the edges of what's going on. And it helped me understand not just stance and professional agility, but also, um, it got me thinking about perspectives and how do we get children who, you know, who don't really, aren't really that bothered about history or Romans say aren't bothered about Romans. How do we build the bothered about Romans? And there's a word bothered ness is, um, I mean, I i i, it, it is something I wrote in my, I wrote about it in my oops book, because that's what I saw that really, really acutely in the special setting. I witnessed it in primary. I had a bit of an epiphany in primary, uh, setting, uh, but I had, I'd nurtured it for myself in, in secondary. But if you've got kids doing Romans, how do we get kids to care about Romans? How do you build the bothered for some children? It's really easy because, you know, Katie over there, she goes home and she tells her parents that she's doing Romans in school. So they pack up the camper van and they all go to Hadrian's Wall for the weekend. But then there's Ashley over there and Ashley doesn't have that sort of support. So how do we build the this for Ashley? Well, the way we get equity is, is in the pedagogy, is how we are delivering Romans. Now we can do it through a worksheet, we can do it through a textbook. We, we've got unlimited online resources, I'm sure for Romans. But the thing that I have found has most power is in the telling of a story, a story perhaps that is set in the time of Roman occupation, has a person in a place. It could be Ian's wall. And that person is faced with a problem, if you like. And the, the curriculum is humanized and it's humanized through the use of story. So I've mentioned that my perspectives changed, but also, um, if you like, stories can change perspectives and we can, we can have stories from multiple perspectives, can't we? Um, something, I mean, I've just talked then about what I've learned, really what I'm learning and what I'm thinking about. And I think that's what stories can do for us is, is challenge us. I mean, I, I wonder what you've got to teach in September and I wonder where the story will rest. If you think about your curriculum like that, where will your stories rest? Where are they in your curriculum? And how will they, um, meet the demands and expectations of those who judge us? Um, for example, um, are you going to be teaching about, um, castles and if you're going to teach about castles, who are the people in the story of castles? What, where are they and when are they, and what dilemmas and problems might they face? I'll come back to that in a moment, but I, I just wondered if how you use, um, stories and what stories you are hoping to use in the next year. And when I talk about stories, I do mean perhaps picture books. 'cause there are so many brilliant picture books. You can see I'm a big fan of books here. Um, I mean those, but I also, I'm, I'm thinking about this idea of the stories that that emerge in in classrooms. I did, um, I went to a school recently where we were doing superheroes. It was year one, we were doing superheroes. And superheroes is one of those topics that can be done brilliantly or it can be done, um, in a lackluster way. Where's the story in superheroes? There's loads. Isn't there enough? I bet they've all popped into your heads now. But for me, um, I'm thinking in terms of what not, I'm not just thinking of the superhero themselves. I'm not thinking of just down, you know, just getting the kids to invent a superhero. And that's that I'm thinking right? In the stories of superheroes, again, who are the people? What characters do we have? Thinking of what, uh, you know, the tails, the, the tails toolkit approach. What characters are there? Where are, where are they the setting and what, what problems do they face? And how do those problems get overcome? For me, with year one, a few weeks ago, um, the characters were actually the people in the city, a city called shiny city, a beautiful city. And the, so that, that was the place, that was the setting. And the problem was all the superheroes kept fighting above the city, and the city kept getting messed up. And the kids getting really frustrated with that. And I was bre I was sort of, if you like, exploiting that frustration by questioning like, are we really happy that the zoo, you know, the lion enclosure in the zoo has, has, has been, has been damaged because of, uh, larva man fighting in the sky against a villain. So the, I I was kind of ex exploiting that a little, and the kids decided that they needed to go and talk to their resident superhero larva man, and they decided that they, they needed to go speak to him. So they had to sort of think about, right, if you're gonna speak to a superhero, how do, how do you talk to them? If you're gonna speak to them and actually tell them off, what, what do you need to say to them? You know? And what this is about is it is a story, but what I'm hoping I'm getting across to you in perhaps a clumsy way here is that actually there's a level of story, but then there's a level of inference, and then there's a level of, um, what it is we're actually trying to do as teachers. And for me, it was about articulacy for me, that little session. It was about negotiation and the language of negotiation. I was teacher enrolled as a superhero. So I was really, really upset. I was like, look, I, I'm just here to help you. I look after your city and you are, you're telling me you're angry with me. You're telling me that I'm nothing but a vandal. Well, if you like, I'll leave, I'll go and you can fend for yourself. And when I said that, the kids were like, oh, no, uh, no, we want you to stay. And of course, their, their kindness and if you like, the values of the school came bubbling up, or the values of the classroom came bubbling up. Um, that's just an example. And what I think that is, is warm. That's a warm approach. Something I've, um, I've been doing a lot of, uh, work around, and I'm, I'm writing a book about now, is, is is this idea of warmth. Uh, it's there in that word bothered as well. I think it's there in the word imagineering, which is a word I use, I'll come back to those words in a minute. But this idea of warm approach, which I think those of you working with the youngest of children in nursery, in, you know, early years reception, um, year one, you, you're good at that, you're great at that. And you, you, you know, you, it's, it's there in play and so on. But I think we've gotta fight our corner on this stuff. Oops, nearly got on a soapbox then. But we need, we've, we've gotta just sort of be quite defensive about our, if you like, our, our professional wisdom and our professional imagination. Because otherwise what happens is the warmth, uh, cools. And what I end, what we end up with is what I saw in that classroom recently where I think essentially the children had spent two weeks coloring in superhero templates off the internet. Which again, I'm gonna say it, I don't have a problem with if it's, if it's helpful, but it seemed a very cool approach. And what that is, that coldness, um, uh, that, oh, there's my special slide about the warm and the cold. That coldness that I'm just talking about there is represented here. This is, um, this is the pedagogy of poverty. And this has been the basis of a lot of my work recently. Um, the pedagogy of poverty is that cold delivery. If you can think of when you were at school and, you know, you were a kid, you knew who was, you knew the teachers who were working hard, you knew the teachers who had your best interests at their hearts. You kind of knew the teachers who were bothered. And I am just, I, I, and, and I'm, I'm, I'm very passionate about this, that's why I'm struggling a little bit. To sum it up, the pedagogy of poverty is one where children are given a curriculum that they feel no ownership over, but they have to be pulled through it anyway, that's represented in that picture. With the two children being pulled through the water, children will accept the pedagogy they're given. And as, uh, for me, it's, it's that we're in that situation. As long as the inspector says it's all right, then it's, it's thumbs up all round. But are the kids really getting a great deal? Um, it's summed up like this. If you can imagine having a brand new drum kit delivered to your school, and you set it up in your classroom, a beautiful drum kit, and the children come in, those lovely little children come in, they sit down and they're reaching out to this drum kit. 'cause they're so desperate to touch it. They're reaching out to it and you say, no, no, no, no, no. And you give them some paper and you just tell them to draw it. That's the pedagogy of poverty. The pedagogy of poverty is rather than really genuinely thinking about the conflicts that can exist in the relationship between a city and its superhero, we just color in. That's the difference between a pedagogy of poverty and a pedagogy of power. It's a satnav curriculum. Um, if we're not careful, we go from A to B and we go in the quickest way possible. What stories enable us to do, uh, we find the diversions, we find we don't find the shortcuts, we find the interesting routes. We accidentally stumble on the C view rather than just go through the city. Does that, does that make sense? Um, I'm, I'm up for complexity. And I think sometimes those of us who talk about creativity and those of us who talk about an advocate for professional imagination, rather than just being told what to do or to read something out, I, I I, I, I think we get criticized sometimes because we're seen as kind of jazz handed educationalists who are too busy reading The Guardian and, you know, fundraising to actually understand the complexities of research based evidence and so on. I understand that curriculum is complex, but my view is that teachers, a teacher's job is to take the parts of the curriculum that are, are absolutely wrapped in nettles for children. And the job of the teacher is to, is to unwrap, unravel those nettles, push them to one side, hold the child's hand and walk them up the path to understanding that's how complex teaching is. Great news is that storytelling can really help us with that idea of protecting children in. So this is all the opposite of a pedagogy of poverty. This is curriculum pedagogy as a powerful instrument, as a powerful tool. Um, since our innovative work in key stage three many years ago, um, stories I've under, I've understood that stories hold immense power. So this is an illustration here. You can see from, um, my oops book, um, where kids come into class and the stepping stones that you see in front of you there across the rough river. Those are the things we do as a teacher that we don't, I mean, we shouldn't really need training to do. You know, like things like being kind, you know, being nice, uh, getting good eye contact. Um, BFL bit of banter for learning for the older ones. Write that down. BFL, that's a good one. And those, those are those stepping stones. But the other stepping stones that you see in front of you that I write a lot about in the Oops book is, um, the fact that narratives and stories are a great way of protecting children into complexity. And I suppose a question to you as a result of this webinar is how do, um, how do you use stories to protect children into the learning that you want 'em to receive? I know many of you will do, you know, obviously you, you'll, you'll use fairytales for instance. Uh, a bit of a cliche, this one, but the story of the big bad wolf. And you know, that there's something there about bullying and so on and so forth. But, um, I mean, there's a, there's a lovely way to subvert that and have the, the big bad wolf as a misunderstood victim, for example, which I know I've done, uh, in a primary class, some, somewhere or other. Um, so I just wanted you to take that with you. And another, um, well, I'll, I, I, I'll, I'm conscious of time, so I'll, I'll keep moving. Uh, I've done some work recently with, uh, the brilliant guy, Claxton and, and professor Guy Claxton, who people seem to forget is a world leading cognitive scientist. And he's, he's just great and he talks a lot of sense, and I encourage you to go and look at his stuff. He talks a lot of sense about this idea of, uh, depth. Uh, I noticed Ofsted recently have started using the same metaphor around deep dive. Um, but Claxton's been there for years talking about, um, basically kids getting their ankle wet in learning and then getting knee deep in it, you know, and then being absolutely swimming confidently in complexity. And I really like that idea. And I think that's what stories can do for us. Um, here's an example. There's a picture. Uh, I just wanna give you an anecdote if that's okay. 'cause, um, I hope this is all right. Uh, and here's a picture that I use, um, a lot just recently actually, but I used it in a year in a, in a classroom, in, in a primary school. And maybe a, maybe the kids are a bit older than the ones that a lot of you work with, but these were, these were year five kids. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to me how old the children are. The principles are the same. Uh, I was with, um, reception the other day, and that that was, uh, that was great, you know, using stories. And then I went into year six doing the same thing. Same thing. Well, it wasn't the same, wasn't the same topic, but it was the same kind of approach, if you like. So there's a picture of a ship. I just wonder if, if, uh, if you were to give that picture to a teacher, what would you expect a teacher to do with that photo? So you might not use that picture with your kids, but what would you expect a teacher to use to u to to use it? How would you expect them to use it? I'm just gonna have a quick slurp of, uh, my water. Yeah, I mean, when I look at, I look at that and I, if I put my secondary teacher goggles on, I look at that and I go, yeah, that's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, that, that's gothic, that is, um, or I can look at it with, um, if you like, what I needed to do, which was year five, I put those goggles on and I can see explorers. And that's indeed what, what we were doing. But some of you, I, I, I'd expect all of us actually, if we all got together, um, and, and sat around and just used that picture as a starting point, I'm pretty sure we could write a terms curriculum quite easily. There's plenty of science in there. There's plenty of literacy. And I can see the numeracy, even though, um, I'm hardly numerate myself. Um, I took this into class, this picture, but the, uh, there was something wrong with the computer, so I couldn't use it. So I had to draw it. And I just said to the children, we're gonna make up a story now. We're gonna do a story together. Can you be kind to me? Because I'm going to draw you a picture. And so I did, and this is the picture I drew and get ready. Oh yeah, look at that. And I'm not saying it's a great picture, but because I'd asked them to be kind, this girl leaned in and said, oh, you're doing really well, which I thought was lovely. And, uh, we decided we were the crew of the ship. So the question I asked was, if we're at the crew of a ship, a ship that's got sails, and we live in the time of arctic exploration, what jobs need doing on the ship. And I'm looking like, I'm looking like that because colleagues, when I'm going into the story, I absolutely mean business. And I, I think sometimes in the past I haven't, I've seen it as like a, come on, let's have a treat. Now, let's, oh, let's make up a nice story, actually. I mean, business. And I asked the children, if we are the crew of the ship, what's the name of the ship? And a girl in the class. Another, another girl just said, it's the, uh, Lucy. Tanya, which is so close to a real historical ship, isn't it? I thought it might be a mum, the Lucy, Tanya. And I said, why is it called the Lucy? Tanya? And this little girl responded, well, it's the name of the woman at the front. And I thought the woman at the front, Kate Winsler, that's what's in my head. 'cause we're off script now, aren't we? 'cause I'm just asking this. Do you remember this? We used to call it talking to kids. Do you remember? You know, it's, it's just, you can't script it. If you ask a question, you gotta sometimes stray away from, guess what's in my head? This is like, she says, it's a woman at the front of the ship, I think Kate Winsler. And I said, who is she? And I'm gonna have to get up and show you now. 'cause this is what she did. She did this. And she leaned forward like this, leaned forward, and she was being the figurehead. And in that instant, a door opened in my head and I thought, goodness, there's goodness. There's, there's, there's something there, there's something great through that door about the figurehead. If we could ask questions now as a class, if we could ask questions of the figurehead, we could, we could ask things like, you are so, you know, you are so beautiful. How's it feel to be celebrated on the front of the ship? Where have you been in your, um, where have you been on your journeys? Uh, why is it when you were alive? What, what, how, how was your life? What did you live like? You know, this, this just, I'm just making those up now. 'cause do you know what happened? That door shut? Because I didn't have time because we needed to cover the coverage people. So we carried on and I said, look, I'm going to speak to you now as the, um, ship's captain. And this is what I said. I said, uh, to the children, I'll speak as the, this is how I do teacher enroll, by the way. Um, I don't dress up. Uh, well, not at school. Anyway. Um, I, um, I, uh, I just say this, I, I'll be, I am the ship's captain, and I will, I will speak, I will speak as the captain. I have made a mistake and the ship is now trapped. How can we get outta this? The ice is trapping us. How can we get out and the children very quickly, because the invitation to them through the question, an inductive question is, what should we do? We're stuck. What should we do? And the answers come thick and fast. And I know some of these children are older than the, the children that you work with. But as I say that, if you like the, the process or the, the pedagogy is the same. I'm just asking questions. Uh, these questions I think are appropriate to these kids in this room. Um, the, the children say, well, we could heat up knives and try and cut the ship out. Another child says, we can, um, we can smash the ship up and build a smaller one. And then a a little boy said, well, we could go into the hull of the ship inside the ship and we can see if there's anything down there that can help us. And the picture that you're see in front to be now with t written on it, t that's er a crate that we found in the darkness. And when the kids looked at that and they were puzzled by it, I said to them, look, um, it's obviously got some writing on it, but not all the writing is there. Could you book? And very quickly, a boy stepped forward. He was a lovely boy. He just said, I know what that is. That's a hot air balloon. And there was our solution to getting out. Um, I'll just skip on a moment, because you can see just from that image in the bottom right hand corner, it was the basket. What do we need to put in the basket to get safe passage away from our predicament? Well, we realized that we couldn't all go. And so we just picked the three bravest, which you can see me working with, uh, absolutely delightful kids. And, um, I'm just, the dilemma, the problem, if you like, was at this point the kids realized that, um, even though they were going to go in the hot air balloon, uh, with our letters that we'd written, they realized that actually it was a mission where that would probably end up with them freezing to death. And that colleagues is difficult knowledge. How far do people go to rescue other people? There's a nice inquiry question somewhere in that, maybe not for the kids that you work with, but perhaps for, um, you know, the, the perhaps for older kids. Um, just recently I was working with, um, some kid, oh, there's a picture of Columbo there. Um, I've missed that bit out. So that's, you just gonna have to wonder about that. Um, just recently, uh, I mentioned the year one kids, um, with the reception kids. The other day we were just on a, we were on a ship, actually. We were on a, a boat going to Pirate Island. It was something that we were already doing. And it was quite, it was quite lovely. Um, I've just seen, I've just seen that Colombo come in. Thank you, Kathy. Um, what, what I've just seen, sorry, what I've, what I did with the kids was we were, we were on the ship, and I, I, I pretty much just, I pretty much did the same thing, you know, not, not the same story as I've just described, but just that if we're on a ship, what do we need to do? What jobs do we do? And you know what, they came out with some good stuff. And I don't know how many of them will be, will have been on a ship, but I know that they'd read a book, pirates in Underpants or something like that. And we were on a journey. And if you like, if you look at this, uh, slide I've got here, if you like, we were the people on the ship. The places is the ship. And the problem wasn't the pirates, actually, we were being nagged by a singing sea monster represented by three TAs and four teachers who were coming in to observe a sea monster. And every time we saw the sea monster, we had to, we had to duck, uh, in silence because the monster was singing to us in the style of, uh, you know, the, the sirens. Was it ancient Greece that, um, but the principles, that's my point. The principles were the same. The people, the placed and the problem, they were the same. I mean, in the earlier anecdote, we were the crew of a ship. We're in the wilderness of ice and we're trapped. And actually carrying freight on an explorer ship at that time was normal because that's what was funding the exploration. And the boy who suggested that, that knew, that, knew that. Yeah. Charlotte, you've written this is like tale's toolkit. You're absolutely right. When I, when we look today, it was, um, we, we talked about this before we came on air. It was a, it's a bit of a surprise, but I think this is probably every story I look at that. And think of East Enders. You got, if you've got East Enders, the so opera, you've got people in it, they're in, they're in, um, Woolford on Albert Square. And the problems are coming thick and fast, and we're getting all sorts of possibilities and perspectives. Um, if you get rid of the problem element, the question mark just there, then you've got the people and the place. And that's just a really dull story. And my worry is that our curriculum, particularly in England, has started to resemble a really dull story. Oh, that's a bit cheeky. Um, Daniel Willingham is a go-to cognitive scientist at the moment. Other cognitive scientists are available. I like Daniel Willingham and I like him because of this. He wrote a great article. Some of you'll be familiar with this, and if you Google it, if you google Daniel Willingham stories, it takes you to a great little PDF. And it's, it's called, um, stories, I think, or it's called Ask the Cognitive Scientist. And he talks about, um, research, um, sorry. He talks about stories being psychologically privileged. Basically we remember them. Now I know that Kate will have done a lot of work on this. I've, this is, this is what's really had an impact on me. I started with mantle of the expert, um, where we would have clients and commissions and so on. Um, I think of people, places and problems. 'cause I think that's what stories are. I think we've all got our own take on it. And if it's working, I think it's brilliant. Daniel Willingham says that if we couch knowledge into a story, then it will stick, it will embed itself. So I, I really like that and it really resonates with me. Uh, I was saying to someone the other day, we all, if you, if you've learned how to drive, we all, um, we all have a, we all have a story about it. And it's an emotional story. If you failed, you've got a, you've got an emotional story as well. My friend failed twice because she ran over a cyclist, um, twice in two different tests. Now, if you remember nothing about this webinar tonight, next time you see me and we talk about, we talk about, um, driving tests, you might well remember that just about my mate. Or you might remember the point when my cat walked in, uh, my p***y cat walked in to have a look. Round is a right character. Um, I've just tried to, we talk about stories and narratives and I know a lot of you are working with, uh, the youngest of our kids. And, uh, I've just tried to couch it here in, in different terms. 'cause I was asked to go and talk to some six form uh, teachers. So male level teachers essentially. Do you wanna see me cat? So here he is, some a level teachers recently. And uh, here he is. He is massive. He's absolutely massive. He's called Basel. Um, and he wants to go out and I'm not letting him, um, the, the, uh, the, the teachers there. I can't really get away with talking about stories too much. 'cause I think they get a little bit impatient. Then I couched it in the language of design briefs and case studies and everyone was buzzing. That's how, that's how great stories are. Um, and the other thing I've noticed with stories is this, um, and working, if you like, in a practical way, like you all do, I'm sure. Uh, and that I'm, I'm, I'm doing that I've done for a long time. Is this, I mean, this isn't everything. I've just tried to sum it up in five bullet points. Um, that was actually reflecting on a day in, in, in that I've described just in last week in the school. Um, and this is my conversation with teachers. What did we notice? Well, we noticed that, um, you know, language was heightened, uh, questioning, the level of questioning was really high, uh, from both the adults and the kids. It sort of, we all raised our game. Um, and if you look at that last bullet point, what stories can do, they can build desire. They can take kids from, if you like, from just being engaged. We can get greater depth. Uh, I'm gonna draw it for you. So K kids are en engagement is great and we all want engagement. If if you're, if you're a leader and you're doing a learning work, you know, you wanna walk around and you want see kids engaged in the learning. But I think there's, I think engagement sometimes is just manners. It's just kids who behave that they're engaging in kids who've got nice manners. They look like they're engaging all the time, but I don't know if they're, um, if they're learning anything. So I just wanted to show you that if you can see it, there's more to, we could get deeper and we could get investment. I should have made that into a slide. Get investment. If you can get kids to invest, that's, that's the thing that can happen when we use stories and stories build bothered us. I've got about 10 minutes left, uh, and we've got some questions and stuff. Um, I just want to, I'll just finish with these last few slides if that's okay. And then I'll invite Kate back in. Um, so that's a big thing I'm thinking about. Um, classroom stance. Classroom agility. It's, it's, I know we've, I think we fit, we're very natural at it with the youngest of our children. Um, but the reason, it's something that gets lost as the kids get older. And certainly as the teachers start teaching older kids, and I don't really know why. Um, I've, I've mentioned warmth, and this is just something I kind in during my research. A warm curriculum is one I think is story based. It's narrative based. And those narratives, um, help build children's own sense of their own sense of worth of spirit and of contribution. Um, and to go back to Martin Haberman, if you like, this is the, the research or you know, the, the, just the stuff I've been reading about. He sums it up. Martin Haberman, you can Google him. He sums it up in those four elements. That's my cat. Mm-Hmm. And he, he talks about intellectual engagement. That's just knowledge rich. That's just, that's the coverage. He talks about connectedness. Uh, how does doing this story link with the real world? Well, I've got the Wizard of Oz there because there's, you know, the scarecrows, the brains, the, the tin man is the heart, the, um, the lion is the courage. And, and Dorothy is most definitely the connection to the real world. And we need to, our stories need to do that. Um, the supportive classroom environment speaks for itself. And the recognition of difference is something that, um, I was exploring with those year ones. In a way, when we're thinking about the superhero, it was how can we, how can we see each other's point of view? How can stories help us see other people's perspectives? And I think, I think that's what they do. And I, I'm certainly not alone in thinking that, um, the helpful model. I think you've got helpful models from Kate, actually. But this is one that I just used to sort of remind myself, um, you know, the people, the place, the problem and possibilities. I'm trying to get that all pulled together now in a book. So, um, you can, you can catch catch that later. I've just seen your message there. Lots of research link story and empathy. Most certainly do. And what I've found is that, that real world and imagined world, we've got the story world going on in the middle there. And that's where we have, we do have empathy. Uh, but, and, and what we can also lead to and teach, um, is, is active compassion. So we can feel bad about stuff or we can feel emotionally moved by stuff, but actually we want to do something about the stuff as well. And it's summed up for me in those three words. I'll skip through this 'cause of time, but my three words that I'm carrying around with me all the time as well as story and narrative is the word imagineering. The engineering capacity of a teacher. You know, the teacher engineering combined with the, um, teacher imagination, that's your imagineering. Um, the bothered ness, which I mentioned earlier, and a bit of ancient Greek for you there. esis meaning practical professional wisdom, which things like this tonight really encourage because it's encouraging us to think. Can I thank you for joining in. We'll do some questions I reckon, Kate, but can I just talk about this really quickly? Yeah, Of course you can. This is just me stuff if anyone's interested. Um, I really appreciate the time and the platform to be able to do this tonight. Um, this, my main book is the Oops book, which is, it's been around for a while. It's very popular and I'm very grateful to have been given a chance to do it. There it is. It's a good, and, And the other book is the Uncharted Territories book. And there's a picture up there, which I wrote with my great friend, um, and mentor, um, Dr. Deborah Kid. And also every fortnight or so I write a nice little story on the TS So I'm, I'm writing the stories, uh, I'm living the stories and I'm trying to spread the great word on stories. So, um, I'm really happy to take some questions and thanks for joining in with the comments. My cat is still here. He's a, is always gonna be a big bother. I'm gonna give him a great big cuddle. Just those are my contacts. If we leave those up there, people can capture them as we sort of take it to the end, if you like Kate. Yeah, That sounds good. Um, no, brilliant stuff. And I think one of the big things that resonated with me was all about the engagement between like your staff and your teachers and your children and giving them real opportunities to talk and explore stuff. And I know for us with tells talk, one of the big things is that sense of humor that comes across. And you talked about that in terms of the warmth and that kind of imagineering and stuff. So, so yeah, lots of, lots of kind of stuff that resonated with us there. But, but one of the comments I got back from Sarah, she was talking about the fact that she has children with limited experiences. Yeah. So they have to model a lot. Yeah. And that sometimes it can be quite difficult in terms of your kind of imaginative stuff. Yeah. Um, and there was someone else that commented in terms of visits to different places and museums, parks. But I wondered if you had any advice to give where you've got children that have got real limited experience. Yeah. Um, my biggest experience, well I, I worked in, um, a, a South Yorkshire town, which is very insular and the children wouldn't really, you know, there was an insularity, not all the kids, but there was an insularity. So experience was, um, everything. Um, but you know, we did a lot to try and enhance that, but you couldn't afford to go out on trips all the time and things like that. Um, I've just seen that comment on team teaching is is massive on that. Um, I think a great relationship between TA and teacher, um, an understanding of, um, of, of why you're doing stuff. The pedagogy, uh, is, is key. Um, when I worked in the Pru in the SEN School for behavior experiences were really mixed on everything there. And what we realized we had to do was start with the child's experience. So if we were doing the earthquakes in Japan, you know, which we might as well have been doing, you know, cheese making on Mars. Mm-Hmm. Do you know, I mean the cur the geography curriculum demanded that we did, you know, something on natural disasters? Mm-Hmm. Well, we just started, we, we sat and thought, right, what are the commonalities between Japa Japan and, uh, Barnsley in South York? And we said, well, there's houses, right? Let's start with houses. 'cause houses fall down in earthquakes and the difference between Japan and we don't, we don't have earthquakes in Barnes. So we're looking at similarities and then we're looking at differences. Um, we started with where the kids were at, what the houses like let's talk about different houses, da da da da. What houses made of structures? Why do we have laws? Sounds a bit boring that, but actually they really enjoyed it. And then all the houses fell down in Japan as a result of the earthquake. And because the, the building regs were dodgy in the, you know, isolated communities. So, uh, that's it was protecting them in, you know what Mm-Hmm. And I think we just have to show, I think we have to show or build the experience in the room. My kids in Key stage four. How cool. Going wild now in key stage four. They were, they were so distant from To Kill a Mockingbird as a text, it was so far removed from their experience. Yeah. That I just had to turn the classroom into the courthouse and they loved it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. Racism and all that. That's it. One of the things actually you're saying about this is that, um, one of the things we do at Tell Toolkit a lot is yeah. That the children can say anything and it goes and anything is accepted and everything is fine and we have lots of violence that kind of comes out in stories and we explore that and go with it. And, and you talked earlier when you talked about the ship, it was really interesting because you had a child that was talking about let's cut it with a knife or a sword or whatever. And then someone else that was saying like, the woods, like the bow with the ship and talking about barrels and things whole. Yeah. So I think sometimes also like what you're doing there is great that whatever they have experience wise, you can kind of go with that and whatever the answer they give is taken and it's appreciated. Yeah. I think, I think there's just a, there's always that moment of care isn't there? A little boy in the Mm-Hmm. On that ship the other day in reception when I said, what do we have on the ship or what we taking with us to the island? Mm-Hmm. He said taking a and mm-Hmm. My response to that was, we don't take guns, we don't have guns. And Mm-Hmm. I'll be honest in the moment it caught me. He caught, he, he caught me out bit because I didn't expect I've had that before and I just said, we don't have guns. 'cause one of the values of this school is kindness. Mm-Hmm. Got outta that. It's always, it's, it's always a tricky one. It is always a tricky one. Um, in terms of the work we do, we work lots with early years and obviously in early years it's very play-based and very creative and we have a lot of space to be creative. Um, how much space is there in the curriculum in key stage one and above to be creative? I, I think it depends a lot on the teacher and the teacher's willingness to look at the characters in the Wizard of Oz and say, I want that. And I, I, I direct people to that idea of mm-Hmm. Back to the idea of the warm curriculum, really. Um, I think some, I I visit loads of schools, I'm sure you do as well, Kate. I visit loads of schools and no school is the same and that's brilliant. Mm-Hmm. But some schools are under the C and they are, um, it de it can depend. I'm not blaming anyone Mm-Hmm. In the school. There could be just lots of different sorts of pressures. So I do think though now in the new osted curriculum and framework and so on, mm-Hmm. That there is, there are, there are opportunities to find the golden spots. And I just think if you're into telling stories, don't stop. You know, if you're doing ancient, ancient Egyptians with Yeah. Year two, find the stories, get the stories out there 'cause there's loads and if you don't know any, just make 'em up with the kids. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Teach 'em the key words. Teach 'em the facts that we need to teach, but don't get them making a poster about it. Let's get in, you know? Yeah. It's true. Well we had, um, we've been using tell's toolkit up in the school a little bit more and we actually had, um, one class they did stories with Egyptians where they had Egyptian gods that they put on bottles and then put them in the character bag and told stories. Yeah. And it was really interesting 'cause it actually took the teacher quite a lot to get the children to be more open and creative and not to reel off the facts and to be more Yeah. Let's kinda read under the lines. And, and I think opportunities for that sort of stuff are, are great and that's really what kind of leads to fantastic storytelling. So Yeah. I'm all with I'm all with you on that. Um, so you've been doing lot. Oh actually Charlotte was just saying in terms of kind of that space to be creative, how can you work with maybe a difficult head or a head who has different expectations to you? Um, I think, uh, it's that risk of being a maverick, the tricky One. I think it is tricky and you know, your head's there and you, you've gotta follow the directions of your head teacher, I guess. Um, well I, I, I've always done that. I've always followed the directions of my head teacher, but no one really told me about pedagogy. I went and found out about it myself. So as long as I was getting the results from the kids Mm-Hmm. And I was given that sense of freedom in the classroom. I'm not saying Charlotte, I'm not saying it's the same for Charlotte, though. I've got no idea. Mm-Hmm. And sometimes it's, um, I don't know. I've been lucky with the head teachers I've worked for, I'll be honest with you. And now I'm getting invited into schools where the head teachers want this and I am busy. Yes. So it's, and it and it gets results. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. It does get results. So, yeah. Yeah. So, um, lots of fantastic things happening. Writing books, um, working with schools, talking at conferences. So what's next for you? Well, I've been doing some, I've done some story stuff with some pre with, uh, I've done a couple of fiction pieces for, uh, as part of a reading charity project that's going on in prisons for adult literacy learners, basically, uh, people who've strayed and ended up in prison and can't read. And we, we know, don't we, the research around literacy levels and crime and so on. So, um, I've been doing a bit with that. I'm gonna carry on with that. I've got another book in the, another educational book in the pipeline. Um, and my book's a practical and I'm supposed to be useful, so, and have been useful and I'm hoping this next one will be as well. Um, yeah. And I'm just carrying on writing the stories for the tests. Um, stories are everywhere. Yes. Yeah, they're everywhere. They are. 'cause I know for me, like our, our job is very much story based and I see them everywhere now. Everything I do, I'll make it into a story. Yeah. Yeah. So that's good. Thank you. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. But no, I think, has anybody else got any questions they'd like to ask before we let, um, how go off and have an evening? I, I've gotta go find the cat. Yeah, go let your cat out before you have an accident. Yeah, I think, I think that's all good, but big, big thank you for everybody who've come out tonight. Yeah, thanks everyone. That's, I can't believe it. Thanks so much for listening. Thank You. That's it. And end of term. So yeah. Not long to go for all of you. So Yeah. But, and, and a huge big thank you to you How too, so for coming out and talking to us and it's A pleasure. Yeah. I really, I've really enjoyed it. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you everybody. See you soon, everybody. Bye.