Bob Cox, author of the Opening Doors books, reflects on the importance of high-quality, challenging texts for all pupils, and key factors for the successful implementation of a challenging English curriculum.
As the author of the Opening Doors series of books for English at KS1, 2 and 3, I’ve had the pleasure of developing a UK-wide network of schools and organisations committed to providing an enriched diet of English where every pupil has the opportunity to relish new challenges. This is particularly pertinent for those advanced pupils whose whole morale can be threatened by revisiting concepts they have already mastered; but it is just as vital for pupils whose reading scores may be low.
We are seeing the high-pitch approaches, encouraged by so many educationists, being turned into reality in the day-to-day classroom by teachers using top-quality texts, poetry, quirky short extracts and contemporary children’s literature with a ‘meaty’ depth. The sheer scope of the language and style is a springboard to genuine comprehension journeys with the teacher’s questioning, knowledge transmission and fascinating oracy being delivered through an inspiring range of methodology. Such is the scope for learning in challenging texts, that the knowledge acquired in the reading can then be applied to the writing.
For example, just read a few lines of Dionne Brand’s Wind:
I pulled a hummingbird out of the sky one day
but let it go
I heard a song and carried it with me
On my cotton streamers
I dropped it on an ocean and lifted up a wave
With my bare hands…
Now see what Faith Gorman, a pupil at Red Barn Primary, has written:
I came in the night,
Luminous black,
Dashing, darting,
I made the street lamps flicker and jerk as I swept by,
I saw the foxes and owls capture their prey…
You can well imagine the range of teaching methodology, word power building and drafting that will have gone on in the process, but without Dionne Brand’s image-making and without overtly exploring the language and techniques, the crafting of the writing would have been less imaginative. There would also have been less knowledge about language acquired: personification, rhythm and meaning; specific vocabulary choices.
Using complex texts and developing the teaching strategies to go with them is key: “start kids out with complex texts that they cannot read successfully; then teach them to read those texts well.” – Timothy Shanahan, February 2017
In my work many years ago as an LA consultant and a freelance deliverer of provision for able pupils – then called ‘gifted and talented’ – there was huge interest from schools in the potential behind the devising of a top-class curriculum; but there were huge concerns about pupils with low reading scores being left behind. That made a lot of sense. In addition, there were concerns that pupils with high learning potential actually disliked risk-taking so much that moving them on to high-level texts and questions was not easy. Schools still report that pupils with very high potential can get upset about an incorrect answer, whereas other pupils can be so used to difficulties that they find it normal to ask their way out of them. [For more on this, take a look at NACE’s work on perfectionism in partnership with York St John University.]
Clearly, challenge for every pupil must become a habit, a norm, an expectation – and then the pupils demand it themselves instead of being wary! I’ve seen this happen in many schools. Resilience grows and healthy ambition prospers. Getting unstuck becomes fascinating, not threatening.
So, when I came to write books for English, pitched high, often asking more of pupils in terms of depth of thinking and breadth of quality reading, I was determined to ensure inclusive routes to excellence which would support equality of opportunity and social justice, and recognising the entitlement to high-class literature – from past to present and across the globe – for all learners, but pitched beyond where the most advanced pupil might be.
These are some key ways in which we have supported schools which are following the Opening Doors approach, and schools have fed back to us as a community growing in knowledge together.
So, what allows those doors to open?
- A whole-school action plan is needed to design an English curriculum which progresses from challenge to challenge, concept to concept, and through transition into KS3.
- Access strategies should flow through the curriculum: scaffolding, responding to need, clarifying, exemplifying and adapting. Pitch high but offer support when needed.
- See the sample units under free resources on my website for examples of our radial questioning layouts, which end the notion of very able pupils treading water on easy questions. We move them straight to high-level challenges if they are ready.
- Opening Doors schools build in whole-text reading in rich and immersive ways, with plenty of choice. Alongside this, extracts provide a focus for language study, depth and comprehension explorations; link reading provides range and diversity in an ethos of skilled facilitation and expectation.
- Teachers develop their own reading and expertise, offering that to pupils as the most wonderful opening of doors to general knowledge, increased confidence and articulation of ideas that there can be.
So, the quality of the text explored deepens learning immeasurably, and that new learning is applied in ambitious writing – but it’s the teacher who makes the difference! Without you, it’s much harder for this to happen.
Reference
Brand, Dionne (2006; originally published 1979), Earth Magic. Toronto: Kids Can Press Ltd.
Full unit features in: Cox, Bob (2019), Opening Doors to a Richer English Curriculum, ages 6-9. Carmarthenshire: Crown House.
Find out more…
To learn more about the Opening Doors approach, explore Bob Cox’s website. Plus: Bob online on 13 October 2022 for an exclusive live webinar for NACE members – register here.
If you would like to buy the Opening Doors books for your school, remember that NACE members can currently benefit from a 20% discount on all purchases from the Crown House Publishing website. For details of this and all current member discounts, visit our member offers page (login required).
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