I had a great time in Manchester over the weekend with @beckyteachopia for the TMIcons English event. It was an absolute privilege to speak (perhaps not so much to have to follow so many other incredible speakers!) and share some thoughts on modelling planning.
In our talk we shared the purpose behind lots of teaching and modelling around planning essays, the key ingredients of a plan, and strategies for embedding planning. You can watch us in the final 10 minutes here, although we would recommend watching all of the amazing sessions!
I haven’t posted much on here about our new book, Essays for Excellence – but want to share a little more information. Inside the book are 40 essays for each of the most popular texts – Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls, and the Power and Conflict poetry cluster. Each text has 6 questions given. 2 of the questions have three essay responses – clear, thoughtful and critical. These all stem from the same plan and the same ideas/evidence, showing how ideas can be developed/refined/explored in more detail in order to move up the mark scheme. The final four essays are all at the critical level, in other words, the top of the mark scheme.
The book has been designed by teachers for teachers. We feel strongly that it’s the book we wish we had ten years ago, but also the book we need as subject leaders who want to discuss and dissect what makes a good essay with our teams. For this reason we decided to include essay annotations and prompt questions to explore, as teachers or students, alongside each essay. Below, before our PPT presentation from this weekend’s event, I have shared an example essay at the clear level for An Inspector Calls. Many people have been asking what the format is, so we thought it best to share an example essay. If you want to take a look at the book, it’s available here from John Catt, or here from Amazon.
Laura Webb CPD 