In three online sessions, Bob Cox, author of the award winning ‘opening doors’ series of books, will be speaking about routes to excellence in English, especially quality text to quality writing links. Bob, and his team, work with schools across the UK to support strategies which pitch high but always include every pupil in enriched English pathways. There is now a large network of schools demonstrating classroom impact of a challenging text culture – especially in writing – via pupils’ work, case studies and articles. Bob will speak about the big principles which support exciting and creative English plus the toolkit of strategies which schools adapt and supplement, moulding their own curriculum and approaches. ‘Opening Doors’ releases opportunity for all pupils but teachers too, as literary texts from the past are linked with contemporary children’s texts and picture-books to produce a dynamic and enjoyable approach. Bob will add a special session specifically on poetry in order to showcase how ‘opening doors’ schools are developing ways of placing poetry at the centre of the English curriculum.

Biography

Bob Cox has travelled the length and breadth of the UK and abroad too, including Singapore and the Czech Republic, supporting schools keen to enhance their English curriculum. His work recognises the huge potential of marrying texts past with text present and taking the imagination across the globe! Bob taught for 23 years before embarking on local authority consultancy, and then freelance opportunities, which has taken him into about 500 schools in-house and at conferences. He has spoken at the Education Festival three times and the Osiris World Summit. In 2017, ‘Opening Doors to Quality Writing’ won the educational resource award for best book resource across the curriculum. Schools in Bob’s network now visit one another, write up case studies and feature in the educational press. It’s a community of knowledge growers with everyone learning.