I have been developing a range of workshops designed to help teachers and librarians develop their knowledge of new titles around specific themes to feed back into their places of work and to their staff. As I have said before, it is with high quality texts (old and new) that we will get the best from the children we work with.
These workshops have been delivered at professional CPD events and refined according to audience feedback. Currently these are:
Refugees and Inclusion – looking at how to develop a reading spine for use across a primary school to help develop the ideas of acceptance, inclusion and refugees in pupils. This is done through a mix of high quality picture books and extracts from longer novels on an age-appropriate basis.
Funny Books: no laughing matter – an exploration of how outwardly humorous books can be used to address a vast array of more serious issues, providing inroads into potentially difficult conversations and allowing discussions within the safe space of a book.
It’s Good to be Me! – how books can be used to celebrate individual differences. Encouraging tolerance and acceptance of others and boosting self-esteem. This seems especially pertinent in light of the current mental health crisis being faced in schools and disturbing stories of intolerance in the media.
Introducing the Classics: it’s an expectation of the National Curriculum that pupils will be exposed to heritage or classic texts during their time at primary school. This is reflected in the expectations of the KS2 SATs reading paper and is something that pupils can be prepared for over a period of time. Explore how classic texts can be introduced as part of a spiral curriculum across a pupil’s time in the school or KS2.
If this is something which may be of interest to you in your setting, please do make contact here on my blog or at firstname.lastname@example.org.