Book David Didau for a C25K Writing webinar or in person training
Other training courses
Intelligent Accountability: creating the conditions for teachers to thrive
What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Psychology: an overview of the research on cognitive and social psychology, and how to implement it successfully in schools
Effective retrieval practice: why recall tasks are often wasted and how to implement them meaningfully
Training options
Why writing instruction fails
An exploration of why many attempts to teach writing are ineffective, and why some students succeed despite poor instruction. This sets up the core problem the course addresses.
Live model lesson
A taught C25K writing lesson, observed live. The focus is on how attention is secured, meaning is constructed, and mastery is developed. The lesson can be filmed for later use. Teachers observe using a simple C25K pro-forma.
Debrief and discussion
Reflection on the lesson, focusing on:
Speech, thought, and writing: the sentence as the unit of thought
The principles of gapless instruction
How C25K aligns with cognitive science and explicit instruction
Core C25K resources
Introduction to:
The Deconstructed Essay
Slow Writing and the creative sentence structure sequence
Curriculum integration
How to embed C25K writing routines into any English curriculum, regardless of texts studied.
Mastery assessment
How to check whether writing instruction is genuinely effective, and how to distinguish performance from learning.
Leading literary: how to ensure reading, writing and oracy are aligned to an academically ambitious curriculum
Getting feedback and assessment right: thinking through the implications of common approaches and presenting a model aligned with cognitive science
How to design a curriculum: lessons from 2 decades of curriculum design in schools, accros MATs and at a national level
David Didau is an education consultant, teacher trainer and former English teacher. He has written The Learning Spy blog since 2011 and is the author of several influential books, including Intelligent Accountability, What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Psychology, Making Kids Cleverer and Making Meaning in English. Previously he was English Lead at Ormiston Academies Trust. He currently chairs the English subject working group for the Northern Ireland curriculum review.
Get in touch to discuss options, tailor the focus to your context, and explore how David can support improvement in your curriculum and classroom practice.