Friday 16 November 2012 | Vol. 2 | No. 11 Memorable lesson Why paying a visit to a ‘memory palace’ may MEMORY SKILLS bring rich rewards 4 ARE KING Getting to better know the inside you Behaviour 100-MINUTE Emotions 8 HISTORY A checklist for a classroom atmosphere Practice LESSONS Time management 10 Pathfinders Pupils teach staff to Play it again, Sir play instruments 13 Hodgkinson Research Spiritual growth 14 Hodgkinson MICHAEL SHAW ‘Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant’ Victor Hugo French poet, novelist and dramatist (1802-1885) TESpro is a weekly supplement for TES, designed to explore and share cutting-edge practice in teaching today. To suggest projects, schools or events to include, or to pose questions for our career and behaviour experts, email [email protected] Next week in TESpro ● A practical guide to assessment for learning Remember good old ● How teacher empathy can prevent bullying ● Research: what difference excellent teaching makes rote learning? Forthcoming events THIS PAGE is frequently an impassioned grump against those who 17 November (London) seem set on reducing lessons to old-fashioned rote learning. But London Festival of Education what if getting pupils to commit lots of information to memory wasn’t Institute of Education, University of London such a bad thing? Join in the education debate at a special one-day Yes, we should be worried about some of the current moves to turn event backed by TES and the Institute of Education, the clock back on assessment. The planned longer exams for teenag- featuring performances, debates and demonstrations, ers look as if they will reward only those who are best at memorising as well as workshops from the National Theatre and and regurgitating information. TESpro behaviour guru Tom Bennett. However, the education secretary’s plans to encourage primary londonfestivalofeducation.com pupils to recite poetry by heart have met with little resistance from schools. Most do it already, and those who don’t normally think it’s, 21 November (London) well…a nice thing to do, perhaps nostalgically muttering half- Whole Education conference remembered lines of verse. Kings Place, York Way Similarly, primary teachers have yet to take to the streets in protest The not-for-profit group Whole Education’s third at the recommendation that children learn their times tables up to annual conference will be on the theme “Becoming 12x12 rather than the minimum of 10x10 set by the national curricu- World Class”. Speakers include Mick Waters, former lum. Again, most primary schools do it already and can see the benefit director of curriculum at the QCA, and Maggie Farrar, (even just because our system of time and months is still based interim chief executive of the National College. around the number 12). www.wholeeducation.org Some information still needs to be committed to memory. Access to the internet may be making us less reliant on our memories, but just 23 November (Bolton) as there is still a place for core knowledge in the age of Wikipedia, we TeachMeet Bolton have to help the next generation resist the temptation to outsource Heathfield Primary School, 5-8.30pm their memories to Google. The school – home to blogging teacher The best way to improve pupils’ ability to retain information may @DeputyMitchell – is hosting a TeachMeet. not be rote teaching, or even flashcards and mnemonics, although Presentations for the event include “Let’s make a they still have a place. Making better use of the brain’s proclivity for whole class den in two minutes – can we do it?”. imagery can also yield results, as deputy headteacher Jonathan bit.ly/ob0Vmw Hancock, a two-time Guinness World Record holder and former World Memory Champion, discovered (pages 4-7). Store your copies of TESpro So memorisation should be one of the skills our schools help to for future reference in a promote. It just should not be the only skill. special TESpro binder. Go to www.tslshop.co.uk/merchandise Michael Shaw is editor of TESpro Hodgkinson or call 0844 543 0064 to order [email protected] @mrmichaelshaw yours for just £4.50. 16 NOVEMBER 2012 tespro 3 propedagogy Memory skills maysoonbeking Thereismoretorotelearningthanrepetitionand chanting,explainsateacherandmemorychampion RICHARD VAUGHAN “REPEAT AFTER me,” the teacher would say One teacher who knows this better than just before their pupils – in neat little rows of most is Jonathan Hancock, deputy head swing-top desks – would take a deep breath and at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in begin the collective chanting. Brighton, who is a two-time Guinness World “Tyger, tyger burning bright / In the forests of Record holder and a former World Memory the night / What immortal hand or eye / Could Champion thanks to his amazing feats frame thy fearful symmetry?” of memory. For some readers, this will bring back memories Hancock has since used his powers of of their schooling (while also evoking frustration recollection to establish the Junior Memory that “eye” will never, ever rhyme with “symmetry” Championship, after the Learning Skills unless you come from Birmingham). For some Foundation approached him to create a it may even describe a lesson today, but for programme and competition that could be others it will be as alien as the cane. used by schools to boost their pupils’ powers People with A few short years ago, the days of classes of concentration and teach them invaluable the best obediently reciting works from England’s memory skills. memories usually literary canon seemed mostly to have gone the The teacher, now 40, said he first became assign pictures way of William Blake. Indeed, it was only those interested in testing his memory when still to things bastions of traditionalism – the English public at school. He was a fan of the Guinness schools – that appeared to continue the World Records books, as well as the popular practice of rote learning by chanting in unison. television programme Record Breakers, and But when Michael Gove swept into power in so made a bet with a friend to see if he could 2010, he brought with him a desire to return set his own world record. schools to those days, and in June his desires “I came across a world record that was for the were laid out in draft proposals for a new greatest number of playing cards memorised, primary curriculum. and as I was into card tricks I thought I would The changes call for all primary school pupils give it a go,” Hancock says. from the age of 5 to be able to recite poetry by He investigated how he would go about the heart, while the education secretary has challenge, and stumbled across memory demanded that primaries should offer lessons techniques that would give him a clever way in the classical languages Greek and Latin, as of remembering each playing card. well as in modern foreign languages, including “The method said to attribute a memorable Mandarin. person or character to each card, so the ace of In English, the programme of study for Year 1 hearts would be Elvis Presley, your teacher or sets out plans for five-year-olds to be taught Mickey Mouse,” he says. “You then create a poetry while starting to learn basic poems and story from each of the characters to help you taking part in recitals. remember which cards will come next in the By Year 2, pupils will be expected to “build up sequence.” a repertoire of poems learnt by heart and recite At the age of 16, Hancock set the record some of these, with appropriate intonation to for memorising six shuffled packs of cards, make the meaning clear”. 312 in total; he then broke the record for But before you slap on your mortar board, memorising cards in the fastest time. dust off your book of Latin verbs and get your Unsurprisingly, his newly discovered pupils yelling “amo, amasHodgkinson, amat, amamus, powers helped him with his schoolwork amatis, amant” in chorus, there may be better, and he eventually went on to study English more engaging ways to approach rote learning. at the University of Oxford, achieving a first- GETTY 4 tespro 16 NOVEMBER 2012 King of poems Learn a poem and England’s royal history in one go. Here is a rhyme to remember the kings and queens of England since William the Conqueror: Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve/ Harry, Dick, John, Harry three/ Edward one, two, three, Dick two,/ Henry four, five, six, then who?/ Edward four, five, Dick the Bad/ Harrys twain and Ned, the Lad/ Mary, Lizzie, James the Vain/ Charlie, Charlie, James again/ William and Mary, Anne O’Gloria/ Four Georges, William and Victoria/ Edward seven, Georgie five/ Edward, George and Liz (alive). Hodgkinson 16 NOVEMBER 2012 tespro 5 propedagogy class honours degree thanks to his find things different from his days at school,” ability to memorise 50 essays. Hancock adds. After a career in radio and as an author of One teacher who is well versed in these more than a dozen books on how to boost one’s methods is Ashley Winters, head of Lodge memory, Hancock trained as a teacher five Farm Primary School in the West Midlands. years ago, and has focused on passing on his The headteacher has used the techniques knowledge to boost pupils’ memory. and taught the memory skills at two very The technique, according to Hancock, was different schools and seen impressive results used by the ancient Greeks and later the at both, with his previous school producing Romans, who would assign pictures to things two Junior Memory Championship winners. and then construct a mental journey or place “I moved from a school with students with the pictures in an imaginary building to help high aspirations coming from high-performing them remember.