Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English

Written by Bob Cox with Leah Crawford, Angela Jenkins and Julie Sargent, Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English provides both big principles and a toolkit of strategies all carefully selected to support the design of a deeper, more creative and more expansive English curriculum.

Together with Leah Crawford, Angela Jenkins and Julie Sargent, Bob Cox has compiled this rich resource, complete with vivid illustrations by Victoria Cox, to help teachers enhance their learners' engagement with challenging texts and develop their writing skills as budding wordsmiths. Working in association with the Opening Doors network of schools, the authors address the vital concept of pitching high but including all pupils and how this approach can be delivered in practice.

Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English explains and models top quality ways of thinking, planning and teaching. The resources, case studies and authors’ innovative ideas on theory will help you to make primary English vibrant, creative and challenging in your school. It also provides frameworks and principles for any school wishing to be more ambitious in developing pupils’ speaking, listening, reading, writing and thinking with a greater sense of curiosity and more originality.

Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English contains chapter by chapter explanations of how English in primary schools can be developed in ambitious ways. Supported by research references, examples of pupils’ work and illuminating case studies, the book provides teachers with a toolkit of strategies which schools can adapt and apply to their own contexts.

The book is supported by the Opening Doors series of books which contain units of work based around selected texts. The authors hope this book will act as a starting block from which to develop an Opening Doors approach to English, and have suggested key concepts around which the curriculum can be built, with the units providing examples to work from.

Suitable for teachers and curriculum leads in primary settings.

Contents include:

• Foreword by Mary Myatt
• Foreword by Sonia Thompson
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction


• Part 1: Key Opening Doors Principles
• 1. Pitching High and Including All
• 2. Challenge and Response
• 3. Text Choice and Concepts
• 4. Quality Text to Quality Writing
• 5. Principles to Strategies


• Part 2: Key Opening Doors Strategies
• 6. Link Reading
• 7. Taster Drafts: Writing for Reading
• 8. Learning Dialogues
• 9. Excellence Success Criteria
• 10. Radial Question Layouts


• Part 3: Further Applications
• 11. Opening Doors at Key Stage 1
• 12. Opening Doors to Non-Fiction
• 13. Teaching Poetry
• End note

Bob Cox

Having taught English for 23 years, Bob Cox is now an independent education consultant, writer and teacher coach who works nationally and internationally to support outstanding learning. Bob also delivers keynotes for national associations, multi-academy trusts and local authorities, as more schools integrate Opening Doors' strategies into their curriculum design.

Leah Crawford

Leah Crawford has 15 years' experience as a local authority English inspector and adviser, working across both the primary and secondary phases, and now leads the Thinktalk education consultancy. She is an associate tutor on King's College London's Let's Think in English cognitive acceleration programme and also works in support of a European Erasmus project on the assessment of thinking skills.

Angela Jenkins

Angela Jenkins has extensive experience in English education and school improvement having worked as an adviser in three different local authorities and two multi-academy trusts in the last 20 years. As well as providing link adviser support for individual schools she also took strategic responsibility for English and assessment. Recently, Angela has worked as an independent consultant, providing specialist advice and support for the development of exceptional curriculum, pedagogy and assessment both in primary and secondary settings. She is currently co-chair of the National Association of Advisers in English (NAAE).

Julie Sargent

Julie Sargent has over 10 years’ experience of working across the whole of the primary sector as an English Consultant. This includes developing bespoke CPD for individual schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities. She has a particular interest in Early Years/KS1 and using high-quality texts to promote and develop all aspects of English.