ABSTRACT

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:

  • Reading for pleasure
  • Writing for pleasure
  • Creating a dynamic and responsive curriculum
  • Creating inspiring displays
  • Outdoor learning
  • Pedagogy for imagination
  • Relationships and Sex Education

This key text shows how, even within the contested space of education, practitioners can inspire their primary learners through teaching with passion and purpose for the empowerment of the children in their class. For all new teachers, it provides advice and ideas for effective and engaging learning experiences across the curriculum.

chapter |2 pages

Introduction

part 1|200 pages

The primary curriculum

chapter 2|24 pages

A Teaching for Mastery Approach

Primary Mathematics

chapter 3|19 pages

Science

Children as inventors

chapter 6|19 pages

Painting a canvas of creativity

chapter 7|12 pages

Music

Composing, performing, listening, and structuring (all without fear)

chapter 9|18 pages

Computational thinking and technology-enhanced learning (TEL)

The power of Computing in the primary classroom

chapter 10|17 pages

Inspiración y oportunidad

Purpose and strategies for teaching Modern Foreign Languages in the primary classroom

chapter 11|17 pages

Religious Education

A creative freedom to teach innovatively

part 2|116 pages

Wider issues and debates

chapter 13|19 pages

Reading for pleasure

chapter 14|21 pages

Writing for pleasure

chapter 16|18 pages

Creating inspiring displays

chapter 17|14 pages

Outdoor learning

chapter 18|12 pages

Pedagogy for imagination