EPISODE NOTES In this episode, Claire talks with Tim Ealing: Founder of Time Capsule Education. During his time as a primary teacher, Tim was a subject leader for English. In 2016, he set up his own business: Time Capsule Education. Tim refers to himself and his business partner as ‘historical interpreters’ working in the heritage industry for clients such as English Heritage. Tim also works as a creative writing consultant in schools across the country.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Make contexts for writing relevant to help children build connections It is important to ensure children have a level of understanding of the subject they are writing about. Children need to feel connected to the context. The quality of what children produce - across a range of abilities - can be greatly improved when they have experienced the context first-hand. Scaffolding Relevant and meaningful experiences mean writing is purposeful to children. If they can build on what they already know, it allows for more creativity to develop. Children pick up on teachers’ interest in the writing context Children are intuitive. They will detect if teachers are not invested in the teaching content. To encourage quality writing, teachers need to be enthusiastic about what they’re asking their children to write about.   BEST MOMENTS “I worry greatly that all the joy and fun in writing has been sucked out of it because we still have an awful lot of people who are bothered about whether they are using the dreaded ‘fronted adverbials’.” “I would certainly like to see more emphasis on drama activities, storytelling and building stories with older kids. I’m a key stage two specialist more than anything else and I think, over the years, because of time constraints and the pressures of curriculum and all sorts of other things, that we’ve ended up not letting big kids play.” “At the end of the day, my first love in school and outside of school is teaching history. As a historian I could extol the virtues of teaching history and why we should teach history but, actually, what it boils down to is that schools are judged mostly on the teaching of English and of mathematics and writing.” “You can’t write a historical story, you can’t write a story set in Tudor times, unless you understand a little bit about Tudor times. You need the language, you need to know what people wore and ate, what they did and various other things.” “I want to be able to facilitate and help teachers make their writing experience that bit more interesting, engaging and relevant to the kids. And it should be fun.” “We’re always going to be needing to have our kids improving their writing; and the one thing that is really important about this is that you get terrible writing if there’s no experience. You get pretty awful, ordinary writing if you focus on just the technical things.” “I like primary school to be the place where kids get lots and lots of different experiences to find that ‘thing’ that really gets them going. Whether it’s sport or music or dance or drama or art or history or whatever.” “As a primary teacher, it’s impossible to keep up that level of excitement and passion in every single subject you teach. I fell into English teaching… and I just have so much fun doing it. I’m a frustrated writer. My hook to most kids when we give them stories to start is, ‘I started writing this story and I don’t know how to finish it, so I need you to finish it for me.’”   VALUABLE RESOURCES Website: https://timecapsule.education/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timecapsuleed Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimeCapsuleEd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timecapsuleed/ Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom