Bosky Publishing

Bosky Blog April (2026, number 3): childhood, screens and learning

HSargeant — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:02:49 +0000

Childhood, Screens and Learning

Childhood, Screens and Learning: what are we getting right – and what needs rethinking?

There is no question that digital media now sits firmly in our society alongside childhood. I remember one colleague who I worked with (20 years ago) who didn’t have a telly at home for his family (including four children). That seems even less likely twenty years later in 2026.

Screens shape how children learn, communicate, relax, socialise and understand the world. They sit alongside the systems and structures that already shape childhood – laws, curriculum, safeguarding frameworks, school expectations, family routines and social norms.

This means that conversations about screens are never really just about technology.

They are about childhood, development, safety, learning and what we collectively value.

For educators, parents, legislators and those working in the media and technology industries, the question is not whether screens are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. That binary doesn’t really capture everything.

A better question is:

In our society, in 2026, what kind of childhood are we trying to protect and promote and, therefore, how does this affect our use of technology?

I’d be tempted to suggest that a ‘good’ childhood is the golden thread.

What screens can teach us about engagement

One thing education can learn from the media industry is that screens are, by design, highly engaging.

Children’s television in particular has long understood how to hold attention. Think about the vibrant energy of presenters on programmes such as Blue Peter. They are enthusiastic, calm under pressure, emotionally regulated and highly responsive. Even when taking on outlandish challenges, they model persistence, optimism and problem solving (and sometimes on live television). There is something powerful in that.

The content is rarely accidental. It is carefully iterated, often scripted and informed by multiple perspectives. Consultants, specialists and inclusion professionals frequently contribute to make content more representative and accessible.

In the UK especially, many of us grew up with the public service ethos of BBC children’s programming – a thoughtful mix of fun, information and education. Edutainment.

That matters. It reminds us that engagement is not superficial. Good engagement is intentional.

Schools can learn from this:

how visuals support memory
how tone affects emotional readiness to learn
how pacing influences attention
how repetition helps retention
how storytelling creates meaning

The learning point is not ‘put everything on a screen’. It is that intentionality is important. Thoughtfully designed learning experiences matter.

What therapy and counselling can teach us about digital access

There are also important learning points from counselling and therapeutic practice.

Digital access can, when used carefully, reduce barriers.

For some children and young people (particularly those experiencing extreme social anxiety, emotionally based school avoidance, school phobia or chronic health needs) online learning spaces can offer access that might otherwise be impossible.

Sometimes (and not always) a screen becomes a bridge.

A child who cannot yet tolerate a classroom may still be able to engage with: remote tutoring, online consultations, low-pressure assessment environments, supported therapeutic check-ins, body doubling via virtual presence.

The ideas of co-regulation are especially relevant here. For neurodivergent learners and those with executive functioning difficulties, the presence of another person, even online, can help sustain focus, reduce overwhelm and support task initiation.

This is where technology is genuinely useful: not as a replacement, but as a scaffolding tool.

Neurodivergence, identity and not feeling alone

One of the most significant cultural shifts of the last decade has been the way online spaces have allowed neurodivergent people to find one another. For many children, teenagers and adults, social media has provided language for experiences they previously felt were isolated.

Suddenly, experiences overlap. A child, parent or young person can recognise different traits, e.g., sensory overwhelm, masking, attention differences. They can realise that I am not the only one.

That reduction in isolation is incredibly powerful.

Of course, this comes with risk (self-diagnosis without nuance, misinformation, identity labels that are not enabling) but there is still huge value in the sense of recognition and belonging.

At its best, digital media can support what schools should always be striving for:

counting everyone into learning.

A big question: what do we all agree childhood needs?

Perhaps the most important conversation is not about screens at all. We zoom out and it is about childhood. What do we all agree children need?

Surely the golden threads remain:

safety
protection from harm
basic needs met
love and belonging
stable relationships
positive social structures
access to education
opportunities for holistic development

Technology should never pull us away from these priorities. If it does, we need to ask hard questions.

Why money and technology do not automatically fix education

One of the persistent myths in education is that more money spent on technology automatically improves learning.

It does not.

Anyone who has worked in a school knows this. (Ask me about my ICT lesson during an Ofsted inspection if you want a specific example.)

Poorly coordinated technology, rushed implementation, inadequate training and badly chosen platforms can create more barriers than solutions.

A screen does not automatically increase pedagogical value. The medium does not transform poor teaching into effective teaching.

More importantly, technology does not replace the deeply human skills that underpin development: communication, empathy, boundary setting, conflict resolution, perspective taking, relational trust.

These are learned in relationship. At present, I remain strongly of the view that the most important aspects of growing up are still fundamentally human-to-human processes.

Children learn how to regulate through being regulated with. They learn empathy through being empathised with. They learn boundaries through navigating relationships and hopefully, having constructive conversations with teachers and care-givers. I think/hope education in the 2020s has got a lot better at this.

No app replaces that.

When technology genuinely helps

That said, there are times when technology is excellent.

It is good when it reduces barriers. This can be transformative.

It is also excellent when it provides experiences that a classroom alone cannot. Online museum collections, live geographical fieldwork, virtual tours and real-time expert sessions all widen access.

Some good examples such as Chester Zoo live lessons and BBC live lessons demonstrate offering learning opportunities many classrooms could not otherwise access.

Gamified experiences can also be powerful, but only when they enhance learning rather than distract from it.

The learning goal must remain the main thing. Intentionality.

Maslow still matters

For me, one of the biggest risks is when technology forgets the fundamentals.

Maslow’s hierarchy still applies. Children need safety before they can thrive educationally.

So we must stay alert to risks such as:

unsafe online chats
exposure to harmful content
algorithms pushing extreme material
commercial exploitation of insecurity
emotionally manipulative design features

When digital spaces compromise safety, they undermine the foundations of learning.

Holistic development and the question of balance

Perhaps a helpful, reflective question is this:

What do you lean into online?

Is it informative?

Is it escapism?

Does it broaden your perspective?

Or does it consume you and push you towards extremes?

These questions matter for adults and children alike.

Children do not carry the responsibility for creating safe digital environments.

That responsibility sits primarily with adults:

parents and carers
educators
governments
legislators
technology companies

Children need to be equipped with critical literacy skills.

They need help to ask:

Who made this?
Why am I seeing this?
Is this trustworthy?
How is this making me feel?
Is this balanced?

But the burden of protection should not sit with them.

So, is the balance right at the moment?

At present, I do not think it is.

Too often the pace of technological development moves faster than our collective thinking about childhood.

Education, policy and technology need to come back to the golden threads:

safety, belonging, access, humanity and learning.

If screens support those things, they have enormous potential.

If they undermine them, we need to be brave enough to say so.

If you are interested, Emma Clarke has written a journal for children and young people working out how to navigate their digital decisions and use of technology. It explores big concepts of posting online, social media, time spent on devices, and dilemmas. You can find out more here and find sample pages here.

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Bosky Blog March (2026, number 2): matrices, learning and education

HSargeant — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:00:55 +0000

Bosky Blog: Learning - what matrices can teach us about inclusive education

I’ve been thinking lately about what matrices can teach us in learning. One of the things I’ve recently valued about working across education, publishing and heritage is that ideas rarely stay neatly within one discipline. Good ideas (and good people!) travel. They evolve, adapt and sometimes quietly reshape themselves for entirely different contexts. If you want to dig into one example of evolving approaches in education, you can take a look at this blog about emotional awareness in education.

In education we often draw on the work of researchers and educators who have helped shape how we understand learning. But some of the most useful insights sometimes come from outside education altogether.

Business strategy. Organisational leadership. Conflict resolution frameworks.

These fields have developed tools to help people think clearly about complex systems. One of the most useful is surprisingly simple: the matrix.

Why matrices matter

Once you start looking for them, matrices appear everywhere. At their simplest, they map two variables against each other to clarify thinking.In the business world, the Boston Matrix helps organisations decide where to focus their resources by mapping products against two variables: market growth and market share. The categories it produces – stars, question marks, cash cows and dogs – are less important than the thinking the framework encourages. It allows organisations to step back and see the bigger picture.

I’m thinking about this a little at the moment. (Not that there are huge cash cows for me, you understand, but perspective taking is always useful.) In education we don’t always use matrices in the same way, but teaching and learning involve navigating complex relationships: between knowledge and skills, challenge and support, structure and independence. Visual frameworks can help us make sense of those relationships.

The Social Discipline Window

Another matrix that has stuck in my memory since my restorative practice training years ago is the Social Discipline Window. It maps two axes: control and support, creating four approaches:

• To (high control, low support)
• For (low control, high support)
• Not (low control, low support)
• With (high control, high support)

The most productive learning environments tend to operate in the ‘with’ quadrant: high expectations combined with strong support.

Teachers recognise this instinctively. Students thrive when they are challenged and supported – when learning is something we do with them rather than something done to them.

Individual children, however, have different tolerances for both challenge and support. Multiply that by 30 in a classroom and you begin to see just how complex a learning environment can be.

Thinking about change

These frameworks also connect with another idea increasingly used in education and social policy: Theory of Change.

A Theory of Change asks a deceptively simple question: what needs to happen for the change we want to see to become possible?

Rather than assuming improvement will happen automatically, it encourages us to map the steps between actions and outcomes. What knowledge needs to develop? What behaviours need to shift? What structures need to be in place?

When schools talk about becoming more inclusive, this kind of thinking can be particularly useful. Inclusion rarely happens through a single intervention (and I’m sometimes tempted to swap rarely for never here). It develops through a series of intentional changes – in understanding, teaching practice, language and expectations.

Mapping those changes helps schools move from aspiration to action.

Inclusion and recognising needs

This feels especially relevant given the ongoing conversations around the UK SEND White Paper and the broader push towards meaningful inclusion.

Prioritising inclusion doesn’t simply mean adding support structures. It also means recognising needs clearly rather than quietly brushing them under a metaphorical carpet.

Recently I noticed an interesting discussion on LinkedIn where Louise Selby, author of Morph Mastery and a dyslexia specialist, asked an important question:

Where does dyslexia fit if it is no longer placed within the ‘Cognition and Learning’ area of need?

It’s a good question because dyslexia is rarely about just one thing. It can involve a combination of factors including:

• literacy difficulties
• phonological processing
• working memory
• executive functioning

These overlapping elements highlight the complexity of learning differences. Simple categories do not always capture the full picture.

Frameworks such as matrices can sometimes help us visualise these intersections more clearly.

Learning from different lenses

Exploring frameworks such as the Boston Matrix, the Social Discipline Window, David Kolb’s experiential learning cycle – moving from concrete experience, to reflection, to conceptual understanding and then experimentation – and Theory of Change models reminds us how adaptable ideas can be.

None of these frameworks were originally designed for classrooms. Yet they offer ways of thinking that can illuminate educational practice.

Sometimes viewing education through the lens of another discipline allows us to see familiar challenges more clearly.

This may be particularly helpful when thinking about the ongoing journey towards inclusive education in the UK.

Because the question is rarely whether schools want to become more inclusive. Many already do. The real question is what enables meaningful change to happen in practice.

What are the main barriers to change towards inclusive practice in UK schools?
Is it time, training and resources?
Is it uncertainty about how to identify and support overlapping needs?
Or is it simply the challenge of shifting long-established systems?

A Theory of Change approach encourages schools to map this journey carefully. Schools might begin by asking a shared question:

What do we want learning to feel like for every child in our school?

From there, they can work backwards – identifying the conditions needed to make that experience possible. That might involve changes to curriculum design, staff development, assessment practices or the ways additional needs are recognised and supported.

But throughout this process, one principle must remain clear.

Children need to remain at the heart of the change.

Inclusive practice is not only about systems or frameworks. It is about lived experience – whether children feel understood, supported and able to participate fully in learning.

If we want education pathways to be successful, children’s perspectives must guide the changes we make.

Their experiences tell us far more about whether inclusion is working than any policy document ever could.

Frameworks and models help us think more clearly. But their purpose is simple: to help create learning environments where every child can engage, grow and thrive.

I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts.

What do you think are the biggest barriers to inclusive practice in schools at the moment? And what kinds of changes have you seen make the biggest difference for children?

I often return to the idea that learning is rarely linear. Children bring different experiences, strengths and challenges into the classroom, and meaningful education pathways recognise this complexity rather than trying to simplify it away. Frameworks, matrices and theories of change can help us think more clearly about the systems around learning, but they only matter if they ultimately improve children’s experiences. If we keep children’s curiosity, confidence and sense of belonging at the centre of our thinking, the structures we build around them have a far better chance of supporting genuinely inclusive learning.

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Bosky Blog January: Borrowed brilliance and standing on the shoulders of giants

HSargeant — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:54:41 +0000

Recently, I have been really struck by this quote as we have been beavering away behind the scenes on ‘Where we live is creative’. The book is an accumulation of lots of ideas and inspiration feeding in experience from my working life in education, publishing and heritage – it is beautiful book that synthesises different strands of creativity found in the UK and, of course, around the world (although the book focuses on UK creativity). Emily Shore has brought the chapters and birds, Fern and Bay, to life beautifully, crafting an invitational and optimistic tone perfect for families.

Where we live is creative by Emily Shore, illustrated by Marion Lindsay

‘Where we live is creative’ is not only symbolic of my working journey but features the brilliance of organisations and artists from across the UK (and further in the case of Thomas Dambo whose Giant of Sperrin, Ceoldàn, is featured in the book). Every page, activity and theme presented is a nudge towards creative possibilities. I hope that by representing these in the book, children and their families will notice creativity in their own communities and that this will develop an appreciation for art, creativity and expression. I think of all the educators who’ve championed the idea that learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. Learning extends into homes, parks, neighbourhoods, and the spaces between.

‘Where we live is creative’ is essentially a love letter to all of these influences. It’s our attempt to gather up the wisdom of those who’ve understood that creativity isn’t solely about works in a gallery (although I love galleries). It’s also about seeing, wondering, and engaging with the world around us in meaningful ways. I’ve written before about our connection to people and places in this blog.

Including Families In the Conversation

One of the most important aspects of this work is recognising that children’s learning exists in multiple places. What happens at school is one part of the story. The moments that happen at home, on the walk to the shops, in gardens and parks, or around our own communities, these moments are rich with creative potential.

Emily has thought carefully about how to broaden out the book to include families. It’s a book designed and written to be shared. Because when we invite families to notice creativity in their everyday environments alongside their children, something magical happens. Parents start seeing their neighbourhoods through fresh eyes too. Siblings become collaborators in wonder. Grandparents share stories about how their own streets have changed over the years.

Learning becomes a shared journey, not a separate learning topic kept within school.

A Resource for Teachers

For teachers working with this material, we’ve created a companion poster that brings together the key ideas from ‘Where we live is creative’ in a visual, accessible format. Think of it as your ‘working wall’ for creativity – something you and the children in your class can use to gather their thoughts and ideas in one place and as a way to get excited about creativity in your community.

The poster captures the heart of the book: that the places we inhabit are filled with creative possibilities, and that helping children develop their ‘noticing muscles’ in these familiar spaces is one of the most valuable gifts we can offer. The themes of the book link to the National Curriculum (England) Art & Design Programme of Study for Key Stage 1, and are relevant for the Curriculum for Excellence (Scotland), the Curriculum for Wales and the Northern Ireland Curriculum.

So yes, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We’ve borrowed brilliance from educators, from creative schools of thought, from artists and makers who teach us to see, from communities that understand the power of place.

And now, we’re hoping to pass that borrowed brilliance forward to you, to the teachers and families and children who will take these ideas and make them their own. Because that’s how knowledge grows, isn’t it? We are inspired, we borrow, we learn, we share.

I’d love to hear how you’re noticing creativity in the places you live. What have your children drawn your attention to lately? What moments of wonder have surprised you in familiar spaces?

‘Where we live is creative’ published on 17 Dec 2025. It is available via Amazon and boskypublishing.com

Author: Emily Shore

Illustrator: Marion Lindsay

Featuring artists, artworks, organisations and events including:

Leicester’s Festival of Lights, Eisteddfod, Northern Ballet, PuppetSoup, Write2Speak, Thomas Dambo, Antony Gormley, Maggi Hambling, Hannah Horn, James Brunt and Simon O’Rourke.

You can download our accompanying poster here at TES Resources.

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Bosky Blog: 5 things to promote Emotional Literacy in school

HSargeant — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:16:02 +0000

At the end of the summer term, I gave a presentation about promoting emotional literacy in school settings. Within the last year, I met two colleagues, Katie Trowse from ‘Rise With Katie’ and Bianca Osborne from ‘Soulful Sessions Mindfulness’. Together as a team, we presented together about different aspects of friendship challenges for children. Katie has lived experience with neurodivergence and coaches children and parents to offer support and neurodiversity affirming play sessions at her outdoor classroom, The Nest. Bianca runs after school mindfulness sessions for children. We are all based in Stockport, Greater Manchester. As soon as I met Katie and Bianca, I felt that our approaches were so aligned – we all want really positive and supportive things for children through our businesses. Please do look them up! This is so important for children with neurodivergence as recent research has shown that their time at school is tougher than for neurotypical children growing up. And mindfulness is a really well-evidenced approach and skill that we can all use in life – the research on it is compelling.

There is a fine line to navigate here because:

A school isn’t a therapy setting
Teachers aren’t counsellor; counsellors aren’t teachers (although saying that, I have two friends who are both!)
Children will not have the language to process everything about their lives in their present – magical thinking and child development tells us that
Schools and staff need to create and offer psychologically safe places and have a duty of care to everyone in the school community
Schools do teach PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) and although it is non-statutory, the guidance is that all schools should teach it.

In schools, I would suggest that there are 3As for staff which are:

– be the adult

– be authentic

– be accepting

This is within the context of our jobs and qualities as being professional, curious, calm/self-aware and open. Teachers also spend a lot of time thinking about how to judge a situation & how to respond at a specific time.

Context for emotional literacy in schools

There are many initiatives and approaches which have had an influence on schools within the last decade or so and provide more context when thinking about emotions, PSHE and school settings.

– Restorative

Many schools and local authorities in the UK have adopted practice based on Restorative Approaches. This means that there is a focus on bringing people together to talk about an issue, creating and asking questions which foster empathy and focusing on how to move forward and repair harm. This has developed from Restorative Justice and if you are interested about how it is embedded in an educational setting, I would suggest Mark Finnis’ book ‘Restorative Practice’ as a good place to start.

– Attachment & emotional security

Many local authorities and psychologists have offered training on attachment in recent years. Coined by John Bowlby, recent programmes like the Solihull Approach incorporate ‘attachment’ and science on the development of the brain in childhood and adolescence. Attachment is the responsiveness of the primary caregiver to the child especially in their first few years – humans can have a secure attachment or a disorganised attachment as their base and this can affect their emotional security into adult life and the way they navigate interpersonal relationships. There has also been a move to incorporate ‘trauma informed’ practice in educational settings which can have links to attachment. If you want to find out more about attachment then you can look at ‘Togetherness’ and ‘Attachment Aware Schools’ (Bath Spa University).

– Kindness as a principle

The book written by Dave Whitaker makes the case for kindness, understanding and compassion as crucial to develop good behaviour management in schools.

– Willing to flex and adjust

The growing awareness of neurodivergence has brought the differing needs of children to the foreground for many educators. The last fifteen years have been fascinating from an observational point of view – simultaneously, there has been a focus on evidence based practice, knowledge acquisition, zero tolerance and ‘slant’ which I have perceived as pretty rigid and structured, alongside a growing awareness that rigid school structures can need to flex for children with additional needs and neurodivergence. Paul Dix’s book ‘When the adults change’ is a clarion call for teachers and adults in school to set a positive, relational atmosphere to transform student behaviour.

– Emotion coaching

The emotion coaching approach has been developed by psychologist John Gottman and focuses on building emotional awareness, resilience and problem solving when working with children. Again, there is emphasis on understanding emotions and naming them.
Within the UK education context, the book ‘Emotion Coaching with Children and Young People in Schools: Promoting Positive Behaviour, Wellbeing and Resilience’ by Gilbert, Gus and Rose, explains the practical application of emotion coaching within schools.

Opportunity for culture

With all of these elements and aspects as a backdrop, I would pick out the following 5 things as being helpful to promote an emotionally literate culture within a school. Much of the language we use in schools builds culture and four out of five of these things are built with purposeful language. If you imagine emotional literacy as a cake (stay with me!), I think many people plan the structure of a school or organization and then think of the emotional literacy as an additional aspect like an icing on top. Alternatively, you can consider emotional literacy as a baked in flavour that permeates through the entire cake during baking.

1. Scripts

Choosing how we respond in different situations is so very important in school. When I went to training by Bill Rogers over twenty years ago, it helped me to appreciate the value of talking through what you could say in a variety of school situations – rehearsing ‘scripts’. For teachers or staff teams, you could generate these hypothetical situations really quickly and talk through the scripts that you would use for discussing or navigating the conversations that ensue. Avoiding caricaturing children and their circumstances and keeping kindness at the fore, I’d suggest to focus on words that validate perspectives, before widening the perspective by explaining that others could have perceived the situation in different ways.

I would think about five steps during the ‘script’ which would be: Notice, Narrate, Relate, Empathise, Move forward. I would argue that these aspects of practice are key to create a culture of emotional literacy.

You will find ideas for scripts and phrases within many of the approaches above.

2. Key phrases

This is where I think teachers can learn such a huge amount from counsellors and emotion coaching. There are phrases which help us to notice and narrate how we and other people feel in different circumstance. Whether we gather specific phrases from hearing specialists or whether we gather them from other teachers, the most crucial aspect is that we collect a bank of non-judgemental and compassionate phrases. These can help us to describe and name emotions and the circumstances which have impacted our emotions.

3. Visuals

This is very linked to analogies below. There are ways of understanding emotions which help us to visualise and grasp things that are very abstract – and emotions are not concrete. Visuals are incredibly helpful in all aspects of teaching. We know that multimodal learning can help us to make links and to engage with concepts.

4. Analogies

So much of verbal processing of emotions can feel very conceptual. An analogy, when used well, can help to give an explanation in a more accessible way. When Lindsay wrote the emotions poster pack, I found the ‘anger armour’ analogy so helpful. Anger and the connection with other emotions can be particularly difficult to understand and sometimes I think people can simplify and name anger without being compassionate about the complex layers of emotions.

5. Sharing a conversation/ shared language

The trouble about the first two parts of my five steps above is that without having the ‘buy in’ or the ‘relating’ involved in conversations about events or emotions then the conversation lacks power. (This is because the explanation is being done ‘to’ the learner/child rather than built in conversation ‘with’ the individual. There is information about the social discipline window model within Mark Finnis’ Restorative Practice book.) Therefore, part of ‘baking in’ emotional literacy involves creating a shared language to help us communicate and process within a school. Again, having training or sharing some of the approaches above, can help to build this shared language. Also listening to those from different perspectives e.g. counsellors, mindfulness practitioners, coaches and inclusion experts, can all help us to build a way of talking about emotions in a healthy and supportive way.

When we integrate these things well, it infuses the school culture. And it makes a difference – it helps staff to feel more secure navigating conversations and it helps learners to become more emotionally literate, reflective and resilient. A win all round

Thanks to Becky (who is an experienced Specialist Teacher for Inclusion and a trained coach) and Lindsay (a qualified teacher, SENCo and children’s counsellor) for their help with the background for the presentation.

Obviously, our Bosky Emotions Poster Pack was created to develop and promote language that helps when we are explaining and talking about emotions in schools. The posters are educational and general and are not meant to be individualised therapeutic advice.

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Borders – new terms and new paths

HSargeant — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:26:22 +0000

I went on a Street Wisdom walk just before the summer break. It was facilitated by Claire who is a coach and trains and supervises other coaches. She’s based near me and I think she is a brilliant facilitator and coach. The process of the Street Wisdom session was to allow the place where you wander to spark your own thoughts and to help you answer your own questions creatively. I found this really inspiring and it definitely sparked my creativity and helped me to think in a new way about a problem. Everyone who participated brought their own question, there was no pressure to share and after we had wandered and felt inspired, we sat in a coffee shop for a debrief.

– Borders

I was inspired by the borders that I saw on my walk. The cut grass against the wild and unmown long grass. The edge of the skate park tarmac clean and (hu)manmade against the grass and soil. The different types of paving that linked together – small block paving next to large heavy slabs.

The August to September transition feels like a significant border to me. Maybe it is like the longer grass allowed a bit more space and room before September restarts with its clarity and purpose. So I allowed myself more room this August and also recognising that I will be creating a new pattern in September.

Schools absolutely reflect this pattern. I hope, for the most part, teachers are in the main relaxing and giving themselves the space and room in August before the calendars fill and the pace is set as soon as September starts.

– Never live the same year twice

I listened to this podcast by Amazing If over the summer and it inspired me that we can practically change things and look for new opportunities within our work. I will be doing that this September too! But as we sit in September, I can tell you a few things that I believe *really* matter and that I hope I will carry forward into the new academic year despite the routines and pace.

Drop the things that don’t work. Ask why you are doing things in a particular way and who is it for. Don’t sideline the youiness that you bring to teaching – protect it. Keep the children the main thing. Focus on growth, content, and relationships, and less on style. Be more intentional about your positive teacher-learner relationships and be your learners’ very best coach. Know that you need a variety of depth and fun and joy in all your classes. Find your team. (If they are inside your school then know that you are really lucky.) Be open to change and reflection and balance this by not putting yourself down. Remember, anyone telling you that they have found a magic wand isn’t correct. And last but not least, you turning up and doing the stuff, being consistent, day in and day out, is you doing the best job you can do.

I hope the newness of September brings good things for you. Embrace the borders.

Heather

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Bosky Blog posts – People help people

HSargeant — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:59:38 +0000

People help people

Where we live is… creative

I have been overwhelmed this week. Lots of people have been talking on my socials about a slow start to the year which is obviously totally fine – go with when you feel the momentum starting! I however booked in an activity workshop last weekend.

We have a new Bosky book that will be publishing this year and it is for children. It is all about the creative places you can find in the UK and is wonderfully written by Emily Shore and illustrated by Marion Lindsay.

I love creativity – in many ways I think it is this slightly intangible quality. However, human creativity brings our inner spark and perception to the outside of us. And that spark on the outside can then connect in a really special way to other people – it brings about a special resonance and joy in our own creative flow and in the enjoyment of that with others.

So last weekend, I enjoyed being creative with lots of families. I’m excited about how they will take the activity ideas from the book and make them their own! Watch this space for when the book publishes in 2025.

People help people

In all the lead up and preparation, I have been struck so much by people helping people. Not just with the activity things but a bit more generally with Bosky.

In quick succession, I attended a coworking session where I was able to bounce ideas off other people (thanks Found In Stockport). I have had friends offering some craft ideas when I encountered a creative block, people offering free cardboard (which I definitely needed for the activities – thanks Sophie and Karen), my former school lending me a tuff tray for one activity (thanks Hannah and Kate), and my friend chatting through business goals with me at the pub. Also, I stood with my neighbour and a few other neighbours the other night, as one house down our road had a chimney fire. Our local landlady brought the homeowner a cuppa and a wee dram – she is absolutely the best of us. And if you want to see people helping people, watch 12 firefighters assess and deal with a chimney fire – expert helpers.

Maybe, I can help

Last year, I had a small amount of books and prizes that I gave to a few local events/places. I’m ‘budgeting’ to do the same this year so if I can help you in that way, please do send me an email to hello@boskypublishing.com

2 links

This week I enjoyed listening to the podcast Re:Thinking with Adam Grant about trust called ‘Fixing the trust crisis with Rachel Botsman’. My favourite quote by Rachel Botsman was: ‘I always thought that hope was an emotion that pulled people forwards and I’ve realised now that it’s not. It’s more like a compass or a promise.’ I found that I was thinking about that for ages!!

I am in a gratitude WhatsApp group and am trying to up my posting days in the group in 2025, so I really enjoyed this article on the difference gratitude makes to different people.

1 Freebie

Here’s the list of the Year 3 and Year 4 common exception words. It’s the word lists from Step-by-Step to Spelling (7-9) and it is free on TES Resources.

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Bosky Blog posts – Helping with spellings

HSargeant — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 14:16:00 +0000

How can I help my child with spelling?

Children (and people) have different learning skills which contribute to them learning at school. There are lots of skills:

speech skills
language skills (which involves listening to, understanding and using vocabulary and sentence structures)
attention skills – being able to focus on more than one thing at a time and for long enough to take on board the requirements of a task or activity
processing skills (how quickly and automatically your brain takes on board information)
working memory skills (how you can hold all the things you need in your mind and complete a task or activity)
some of these also come into the broader category of executive functioning which involves attention, working memory, emotional regulation and other aspects

Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness skills are the underlying skills that are developed throughout the Early Years (0-5) in parallel with many of these other skills above. These are skills like being able to hear sounds in words, being able to notice and play with rhyme, noticing the beats and syllables in words, knowing where a word starts and stops so when I hear ‘cuppatea’, I know that means three words: cup/ of/ tea. All of these underlying skills are then built on when we start formally learning phonics which is the sound system that links to individual or groups of letters.

Some children and people might not have strong phonological awareness and therefore find that link between sounds and letters difficult to acquire. They might acquire it after a lot of overlearning but it might not be something automatic and easy.

Why does all of this help with spelling?

Spelling is a different learning skill but it involves lots of the early skills above. You need language skills to know what the word is and phonological skills to be able to hear it and know the sound structure of the word. Then you need to be able to segment the phonemes and know what spelling patterns would be used for each of those. And (!) if it is a long word, you need the working memory and attention to do all of these things throughout the word and in sequence (in order of the sounds that you ‘hear’). Add to that, that in English we have lots and lots of words that don’t correspond exactly to the phonological sound structure that we hear when you say the word. These are found in the common exception word list in the National Curriculum and these words are the ones covered in Step-by-Step to Spelling – the Key Stage 2 common exception word lists.

For spelling, you can imagine this pyramid of learning of the layers of learning going on.

The good thing is that our brains are plastic making new links all the time – we can learn and take on new links that help. For the last couple of years, I had the privilege of tutoring a teen who struggled with literacy. She wanted to work hard (and believe me she really did) to increase her literacy skills. We used a structured programme (which I adapted slightly because of our weekly sessions) to support morphological understanding and automaticity. That’s half way up the pyramid. But it *really* helped and meant that my student was making really good progress with her foundation qualifications that will help her get into college.

At the same time, I wanted to develop a spelling book because I know that for some weekly 1:1 tutoring is not accessible. I know, for example, that all schools in England get a lot of support to deliver their phonics schemes but post phonics, these common exception words are tricky to learn. I wanted parents to have a teacher ‘in their pocket’ who could break down the huge list and give it some sort of structure. I wanted to create lists that had common spelling patterns but that linked to the sound structure of the words where it was relevant. Most of all, I wanted to create something with really short bursts of practice, something incredibly achievable, that could help children to practise a little step at a time. That is why it is called Step-by-Step to Spelling.

Things you can do at home specifically to help spelling:

Here are my easy top 4 things to keep doing at home with words when your child has finished learning the initial phoneme/grapheme correspondences. (Maybe not all of the time! Mostly be as present as possible but that’s a different blog. Make hot chocolate and smores, watch movies, do karaoke, dance in your kitchen, play on scooters, go for walks and read books.)

1. Say words

If your child doesn’t say a word accurately, check that they know the parts of that word but in a positive way. My youngest used to always say ‘plano’ instead of ‘piano’ – there was a point where I needed to repeat back the word in a sentence saying, ‘yes, you played the piano’. I’d call this giving a good model of the word or of language. Even better, tell your child when you learn a new word whether at work or in a book or on telly!

2. Talk about what a word means

Our brains are hearing and filing away the words that we hear and making links all the time. This is a rapid build up to knowing words – by the age of five, children on average know *a lot* of words! My textbooks aren’t recent so I’m pretty sure there will be more recent data points but we are talking about children having vocabularies of around 3000 words at age 3. The links between real things, context and words are always being made (and we refer to these as semantic links). The better we know the word, the better we will know its sound structure and therefore the easier it will be to translate these to writing.

3. Draw a picture

If there is a new word, draw a little sketch that is something to do with the word. It is even better if your child can do this themselves so they are making links with the word and its meaning. Collect the new word sketches somewhere in your house like on your fridge and refer to them. When we draw and say words as well as trying to write them, we call this multisensory learning. This is a good way for our brains to make links.

4. Chunk words into syllables (and use sticky notes)

Count the syllables in longer words and use a sticky note for each syllable of the word. Go through each part and write it down in chunks. You can do this with your child if they aren’t confident. If they aren’t confident with syllables then google ‘chin drop syllables’ to find a good method for doing this. If your child finds it difficult to sequence the sounds in a longer word, breaking the word into the syllabic chunks can be helpful. In my experience, a lot of children will sequence the first couple of sounds and then be much less confident with the sound structure in the middle and at the end of the word.

Will my child find the common exception spellings easy after using the workbook?

In Step-by-Step to Spelling, the focus is on learning the common exception words for Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6. These ramp up to some pretty challenging spellings – there are more than a few of them that I write down and look at to remember how they are spelt and I am more than half way to 90 years old!

So the answer is not necessarily. But by looking at each of these words and their meanings, your child will improve their brains ‘filing cabinet’ of spellings. That is because they will know the word better because they have practised, they will have seen it, said it and written it multiple times (overlearning and multisensory learning) and they will have a better understanding of the meaning of the word. Remind them that practice is always valuable and if your attempts at spelling are closer to the correct spelling then you can then use other tools more easily – like a dictionary or a spellchecker.

Hopefully, you can see in the pyramid that there are a lot of different skills that we are using when we are spelling. When your child is at high school level and writing longer pieces, we might need the spelling help of word processors or speech to text apps. This isn’t because spelling is unimportant but it isn’t as important as communicating your ideas for a purpose and/or effectively. But spelling can always get better – someone might teach you a new prefix or suffix or tell you the language that it comes from; you might learn a new technical word and want to be able to use it with clarity when you are writing. It’s not a binary skill or good at it or not – it is always something you can develop or grow. And it doesn’t have to hold you back.

This is my last blog for 2024.

Wishing you a brilliant last couple of weeks of the years, festivities if you celebrate and a joyous start to 2025.

Heather

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