Getting to grips with mastery doesn’t have to be hard work – far from it. In this blog post (originally published on schoolsimprovement.net), NACE associate Sarah Carpenter outlines a simple but effective use of mastery to improve primary English provision for all learners, including the more able…

While teachers and schools are at different points in the maths mastery journey, it’s now fairly clear what that looks like and what’s expected. When it comes to English, however, there’s relatively little guidance on how to use mastery effectively.

Inspired by Michael Tidd’s advocacy of longer literacy units, covering fewer texts and focusing on writing for a social purpose, over the past three years I’ve worked with schools to develop a mastery approach for primary English. This is certainly not the only approach to mastery in English, but it is an approach that I and the schools involved have found effective.

The concept is simple: each half term the teacher selects a central “driver text”. This is paired with a range of supplementary texts, including fiction, poetry, non-fiction, multimodal texts, and cross-curricular links. The unit is planned around the driver text, building in curriculum requirements and a broad range of writing opportunities.

This approach gives all learners the opportunity to develop a secure understanding of the driver text, subject matter and key skills – as well as the scope to work in greater depth and to explore and showcase their creativity and writing abilities.

Here are six reasons to try this mastery approach in your primary English provision:

1. It works for learners of all abilities

First and foremost, mastery is about providing support and opportunities for learners of all abilities to develop at their own pace. This approach allows time for all learners to become familiar with the central text and subject matter, and to practise specific skills such as predicting, comparing, making connections and synthesising.

For learners working below age-related expectations, you’re not moving on too quickly, and there are opportunities to consolidate skills through repetition. At the other end of the spectrum, more able learners have opportunities to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the writing purpose, bring together multiple texts, and deepen their subject knowledge.

The inclusion of poetry in each unit helps to expand learners’ vocabulary and get them thinking creatively about the choices they’re making. The use of non-fiction and cross-curricular texts provides opportunities for the more able to make clever use of sources, and to play with their writing styles, taking the audience and purpose into account. They have a bigger toolbox to draw on, allowing them to really show off their finesse as writers.

2. It engages even reluctant writers

When choosing a driver text, I try to choose one that will capture the interest of everyone in the class, particularly keeping boys in mind. Then I plan the unit to incorporate a wide variety of writing opportunities – short, medium and long – so even reluctant writers face something manageable and interesting, that breaks the mould in terms of what they’re usually asked to write.

3. It develops deep subject knowledge

Bringing in supporting texts with a shared theme allows learners to develop a deep sense of subject knowledge, so they can write as experts in the field. Just as a published author wouldn’t start writing without doing their background research first, we’re setting the same expectation for our pupils. This approach resonates very much with highly able learners in English.

4. It makes more effective use of time

This approach takes up no more or less time than would already be used for literacy sessions, but makes more effective use of that time. Covering fewer texts in a more focused way means more time to get deeply into the full range of curriculum requirements – in terms of reading, writing, drama and spoken language. You can even use the driver text or an accompanying text for guided reading sessions, so everything is working together.

In terms of planning, you do need to allocate more time at the beginning, because you’re essentially planning out the full half term in skeletal form. You can adapt as you go along, but you need to plan ahead to ensure you extract everything you can from the driver text and stop at the right points, building up that sense of mystery and anticipation, and allowing for reading and writing opportunities along the way.

Once you’ve chosen the driver text, you’re looking for those opportunities to bring in non-fiction, and searching for appropriate poetry connections. Once you’ve done this groundwork, you should find you spend less time on weekly planning, because you’ve got the framework in place.

5. It works for all types of text…

…even (or especially) picture books! I often choose picture-based story books or graphic novels, such as David Wiesner’s Flotsam or Shaun Tan’s The Arrival – which can be interesting when you tell people the unit is going to improve children’s vocabulary and grammar! Other driver texts I’ve used include Robert Swindells’ The Ice Palace, Rob Biddulph’s Blown Away, Helen Cooper’s Pumpkin Soup and Alexis Deacon’s I am Henry Finch.

Essentially, you’re looking for a text where you see lots of potential to go off at all sorts of different angles, and bring in cross-curricular links. For example, with I am Henry Finch, there are lots of links to be made with PSHE.

6. It’s fun!

Last but certainly not least, this mastery approach is fun. I’ve developed units for KS1, lower KS2 and upper KS2, with positive feedback from all. Not only have schools got some fantastic writing and reading responses from learners, but the children have really enjoyed it. They appreciate the opportunity to get deeply into one particular text – but not to the extent where they get bored, because they’ve got the addition of other texts of different types, and the scope to show off just what they can do.

Georghia Ellinas, Head of Learning at Globe Education, explains how Shakespeare’s stories can be used from an early age to develop engagement with oral and written narrative – and a whole lot more…

Narrative is a central element in the National Curriculum – for good reason. Storytelling is at the heart of human identity, communication, and our understanding of the world. Through the telling and interpretation of stories, learners develop not only their vocabulary and command of language, but also their cognitive skills, empathy, sense of self, and engagement with moral and emotional issues.

Good stories also prepare learners for engaging with the range of literature they will encounter throughout their school careers and in their personal reading. That is why it is important to offer them interesting stories from the start.

And what greater storyteller than Shakespeare to engage learners of all ages and abilities?

The power of performance

There’s a common misconception that Shakespeare is too challenging for young children or for those coming to English as a second language. In fact, the perceived difficulty of Shakespearean language is irrelevant when children are motivated to learn and use it, through immersion in role play and oral exploration of the plays.

Inviting learners to act out the stories – putting themselves inside the minds and predicaments of Shakespearean characters at key moments in the narrative – provides a first-hand immersive experience which means they use language in a much more powerful way.

This performative, oral phase is an essential precursor to developing learners’ writing skills. The written work they go on to produce is much more creative and confident, grounded in a real emotional engagement with the story, characters and language. Having had that immersive experience, learners are motivated to challenge themselves, and you get that wonderful language development that takes place when children hear and use very rich language.

Shakespearean philosophy for children

Beyond the development of speaking and writing skills, Shakespeare challenges learners to grapple with moral and emotional issues. By choosing the right plays, and presenting them in an engaging way, this can be made accessible to learners of all ages and abilities, starting right from the early years.

For very young children, consider a play like The Winter’s Tale. This is about jealousy – irrational jealousy – exploring the counterproductive and destructive side of being possessive of your friends. For slightly older children, a play like Twelfth Night looks at bullying – the way that, when we don’t like somebody or think they need taking down a peg or two, we gang up on them – and how unfair that is, no matter how difficult that person may be.

All of this gives learners a foundation they will build on throughout their education, up to GCSE and beyond – understanding story structure, analysing characters and their motivations, describing contexts, assessing moral dilemmas. It also gives them tools for life, developing attributes such as empathy, which are essential for a happy life.

Children as Storytellers

These goals and principles underpin Globe Education’s Children as Storytellers project, launched in 2012 to support primary schools in developing learners’ storytelling skills using Shakespeare. Running over a course of 10 weeks, the project offers interactive workshops for learners, CPD for teachers, and an interactive storytelling session in their school. Hearing the story together is the best way to build a shared understanding of the characters and what happens to them.

In the first half of the course, Globe Education Practitioners use role play-based workshops to inspire learners to start using the language of the play, exploring the characters’ motivations, and thinking about the structure of the story. The second half of the course is led by school teachers, building on the use of performance and oral storytelling to develop learners’ reading and writing skills, with support from the Globe team. Over the last year we’ve also extended the project to run sessions for family members, engaging them in telling stories, asking questions, and developing their child’s critical thinking.

Headteachers and teachers involved in the project highlight its capacity to stretch and challenge not only their learners, but themselves as well – giving them fresh tools and approaches with which to unlock Shakespeare, and prompting them to rethink what they can offer even their youngest learners.

How to get involved

NACE is delighted to be working in partnership with Globe Education this year, to support NACE members in providing challenge through all phases of the English curriculum. To access free resources to support teaching and learning using Shakespeare – including lesson plans, revision guides, videos and interactive online tools – visit The Globe’s Teach Shakespeare website.

To find out more about the Children as Storytellers project, and to discuss running the project at your own school, contact the Globe Education team on +44 (0)20 7902 1435 or email learningenquiries@shakespearesglobe.com.