It never ceases to amaze me - the ideas that students get. Story telling with PTM is great fun, motivating and extremely useful in engaging people back into the purpose for writing.

Here is how to do it...

Make a 5 picture/tune story map on PTM. Get the students to work in groups of about 6. The task is to make up a story and tell the rest of the group in a special stroy telling session. They only need to plan out the outline of their story making sure that all the ideas link together.

When they tell the story they need to make sure they include all trhe detail they want and keep the listener entertained and enthralled! They can use voices and actions if it helps. If the weather is good go outside and sit round a pretend fire.

Do this regularly and keep notes of all the different stories that are created. It will become a really special time for you and the students.

All the groups - even though they all have the same stimulus - will come up with different stories. If you can, record the stories and use the CD for future work on plot development.

Have fun!

Monday 26th September ( Day 1 )

Over the next two weeks I will be working in Netherfield Primary School in Nottingham on a project called “A Whole New World.’ It aims to tackle challenges in literacy through creativity and raising self confidence.
I will be working with all year groups from reception to Yr 6.

I have written sounds and collected pictures to represent each habitat that we will be writing about. It is from these descriptions that characters will be developed. Outside Ian Dimmock, an expert in creating buildings and structures outside with children will be constructing these habitats - with willow houses and other amazing structures to make the world come alive.

Today I was working with Reception in the morning and Yr 1 in the afternoon. The reception were split into 4 groups of 15. We focused on the sea using just sound. We had props such as an inflatable boat, inflatable dolphins, blue streamers and material and a bubble machine. Many thanks to Ian for operating the machine!

The soundscape I created starts with a modal drone and gulls singing. For this the children had to be flying birds - sometimes flapping their wings, sometimes soaring etc.
When the rhythm started - signifying the movement of the sea - the children used the streamers as fish - twirling them in the air and making them swim. At on point some Yr 6 were watching the younger ones running around with the streamers. They looked very interested and i asked them if they wanted to join in. They did and loved it as well!

Eventually the sound of a whale comes in - for this the children made big diving moves.

I wanted this piece to be all about change - like the sea.

I had also written a piece called the seaweed song - for this the children pretended to be seaweed - keeping their feet fixed but swaying back and forth in the swell of the ocean ( and the Music!) It was a challenge for the children to stay fixed into the ground while the bubbles fell around them - a real lesson in self control.

The bubble machine made the place look magical and the children were taken to another world.

The afternoon was spent with YR1. Each class had an hour each which was spent giving the children an introduction to Picture the Music Create. How to visualise, observe images to get ideas and the power of sound.

This is a challenging session as there are a lot of concepts to take on board. It is vital that this is done before the main sessions as they need to engage with the sounds and images

One of the children described the sound of hissing as ‘ An owl driving a fire engine...’ That is a perfect example of how sounds make us see different things - and how someone always comes up with something totally original!

The next session with Yr 1 will involve them looking at images of Caves and listening to the sound of dripping water and other ethereal noises! Now they have had the introduction they will be more able to interact with the experience...


Tuesday 27th September ( Day 2 )

The morning was the dance with YR 2 - I am so pleased that it was a total success. they loved it and enjoyed learning all the moves. It was difficult but the staff and children all joined in with gusto! I was so happy to see such joyousness in the hall. My hope is that the experience these children have had will feed into their writing. I am going got introduce some complex and challenging concepts - the hope is that the children will take these on with more enthusiasm as they can link it to something fun! To me it was 3 hours of laughter and happiness - when i wrote the music and put the dance together I couldn’t ask for more.

The afternoon i was with Yr 5 focussing on lakes. The first class were great though a little resistant at first. The maps and ideas they came up with were fantastic.

The second class were different as they seemed to get the concepts that i was talking about. They were wonderful to work with and the maps and ideas were brilliant.

Lakes are not easy settings to get to grips with. There is not a lot to look at - very still water. It is all about atmosphere and this is a difficult thing to access when so young!



Wednesday 28th Sept ( Day 3 )

I was with yr 3 and 4 all day today - there are 4 classes so each one had approximately 1.30hrs each.
Class 5 and 6 focussed on rivers and 7 and 8 focussed on forests.

Both sessions were challenging for the children as they had to not only look at the images of forests and rivers to get ideas but also had to imagine the essence of the places through the music.

The soundscape for the rivers was a little like the water cycle - starting with rain and gradually building in intensity and dynamic. The melody also became more harmonic - my thinking behind this is the river in its later stages becomes slower and more at one with the land. One late addition that the teachers wanted me to add was the idea that a whirlpool formed in the river to form a portal. This was the start of another session that would be done later about entering into yet another imaginary world!

The forests centered on natural sounds of birds with singing bowls and other weird sounds. The images were mysterious - lots of mist and silhouettes of trees. This had a real impact on the childrens ideas. They loved the sound of the nightingale at the end of the piece. I explained that this particular song had inspired poets for hundreds of years.

Thursday 29th Sept ( Day 4 ) Filming Day

Today was the first day of filming the project for the documentary we are making. The aim was to show people how these techniques of creating memorable experiences for the children impacts on the learning in profound ways. Alex Dawe, the director of Quarantine productions who are making the film, worked with me all day and was fantastic at blending in with the class. I am confident that he has captured the essence of this stage of the project really effectively.

We decided to film progression of the previous 3 days - We started the day with the follow up session from Yr 5 - they had created their maps of ideas and were now ready to work on gathering more words using a thesaurus and constructing sentences. We also demonstrated the importance of movement to loosen up before work. All the sessions have various moves integrated in them. The importance of dynamic learning environments have been well documented. The human body is not designed to be still for hours at a time. Getting up, stretching and dancing ( especially to a rhythm ) is the perfect way to alleviate stress and motivate. The most usual sound you hear when doing these moves is laughter, and all you see are smiles. To me this is the atmosphere you want before entering into challenging activities. Taking a few minutes out to create this is time well spent.

We were then joined by the youngest children in F2 doing the seaweed dance with the bubble machine. This looked magical and as this was their second go it went fantastically well. The children had really remembered the point of the dance.

We followed with the Yr 2 grassland dance - again it went fantastically well even though we were in a smaller space as the hall was being used for harvest assembly!

Yr 1 then did some sound word work - 6 sounds were played and the children drew what they thought each one represented. They then shared their ideas. This is a great way to get children to share what they think.

We have also got some footage of Iain’s work - with children designing and trying out their ideas.

The afternoon was a full session with Yr 6 which will show people the process from the start. They are eventually going to create a character from the mountains. The children really embraced the ideas and enjoyed working on their maps. As they are older we managed to get the maps finished and construct sentences -we even managed to to perform some of them to each other.



Friday 30th Sept ( Day 5 )

The main factor of this day was the heat. Anyone who has worked in a school will realise that heat and classrooms don’t mix. However all the sessions went incredibly well so all credit to the resilience of the children!

I began the day with the second Yr 6 class. The whole class were incredibly up for everything that was put to them. I have no doubt that the resulting finished work will be spectacular from this class. The maps and ideas were all of the highest standard.

The next session was with YR 1. This was the first class to start the actual designing of the character. We did both setting and character at the same time as I felt that the split the two over a week would be too difficult for such young children.

We looked at the images of caves and listened to the sounds of dripping water. We tried lying still on the floor and imagining our characters with the music.

They then drew their characters and thought of single words or phrases to describe them. Considering the very challenging temperature of the classroom ( it was roasting ) the whole class did exceptionally well.


The afternoon was spent with small groups from F2 - this time we tried variations on what Yr 2 had done in the grassland. i was amazed at how many children knew the sound of crickets!

So week one finished - all the school have thought about the setting for their characters and have been re introduced to the method of using sounds and images to gather ideas.

I am very much looking forward to getting on with next week - Character development. I am hoping to do some songwriting and poetry with them to go alongside the characters.I am also looking forward to working with the nurture group on Tuesday morning. The outside buildings will also start to take a little more shape - the time scale for these is longer though - 5 weeks.

The project is now 4 days in and going really well. Alex Dawe was in today filming the work so far - we got footage of every year from reception to YR 6. It was hard work as it was so hot but everything went to plan. I am keeping a daily record and will post the first 5 days when i have completed it.

One teacher said something to me today though that really struck a chord about allowing children to think for themselves and grow with their own ideas.

' Its amazing what they are capable of when you just sit back and watch..." They had been set tasks to build umbrellas for ladybirds and houses for mice - when the motivation is right and the skills introduced the learning blossoms...

The inspiration project took place at the Holy Trinity and St Silas school in Camden. I worked with an artist - Nathalie Frost and Year 4 and 5. The theme of the project was Water and we wanted to use this theme to investigate Poetry, Image and Sound. The first task was to inspire the children to write some poetry. I used PTM with various watery pictures and sounds - yr 4 had one picture and one sound while Yr 5 had two contrasting pictures and sounds. The results were stunning. The next stage Nathalie worked with groups of children to create enormous vibrant paintings based on their words. I worked on investigating the sounds of water and linking these sounds to the words they had written.
The sounds and words were all mapped out and the children began to think of symbols that could represent these sounds and words.
These symbols then became the basis for composition and more huge paintings.
By the end of the week the children were performing their paintings! Reading their poems. Composing new sounds and much more.
It was a fantastic week and everyone got so much out of it. All the children were so motivated and had so much fun. One boy came up to me after one of the days and said he had had "the best day in school ....ever!"
It was amazing to think that out of poetry came so much more - the children had a real reason to write
and loved making their words shine.
I hope to be able to put up some pictures of the artwork alongside the poetry soon.
Many thanks to Annie Williams, the head teacher at the school and to Nathalie for an unforgettable week.

I am visiting Burton End school in Haverhill next week and was looking through some old notes. I came across these quotes from the Year 4 class after a creative writing session. I think they speak for themselves!


"Playing the music was wonderful."
"I enjoyed the dancing - it made me think more."
"I think the map will help us with our work."
"It makes work a lot more fun!"
"I enjoyed the lovely calm music on the laptop."
"I liked it when we made up our own poems."
"I really enjoyed the dancing,poetry and learning - it will help us when we are stuck and it will help us improve."
"I have learnt that you can put ideas on a sheet and make sentences out of them."

If you collect comments from the children about using Picture the Music let me know!

This film was made in Holy Trinity and St Silas Primary school in Camden and features a variety of ways to engage and inspire boys to write. All too often I hear from boys that they do not see the point of writing or that it is boring.

I was happy to take part in the film(All about the boys), using Picture the Music. The film shows the response of a year 6 class. They all had a wonderful time and produced some stunning work.

Other people involved in the film include a journalist and an actor. I am not sure where the film will be available to see but when I find out I will let you know.

I had a fantastic day in the beautiful setting of Borwick Hall up in Lancashire on Friday. I was working with the staff of Christchurch Primary school and a few other head teachers from schools in the cluster.

The aim of the day was to give the staff the ability to use PTM in the classroom and ideas to try out. The afternoon was a special composition project using PTM as a stimulus...

It was a fantastic day - everyone was so enthusiastic and willing to try everything asked of them. The tasks were approached with real gusto!

I was so pleased to receive an email this morning from one of the teachers - Anna-Claire Withey. She had immediately used PTM with her class of Year 4 on settings/openings. She explained that her class struggle with literacy but was 'amazed by what the children have achieved!'

Here are the examples that Anna sent me - I think they are wonderful.

What better feedback for me, than this!

Example 1
When I was traveling I saw magical things! There were ice caves and dripping fire, but the thing I remember most of all is the magical field. There was grass as green as sea weed and tree trunks browner than mud. The leaves were all the same green as the grass. But a most peculiar hut caught my eye. Like a stone cave but greyer than lead.
But the wizard that lived there was more magical than the field. He looked powerful in his gold. He looked old and wise. The magical wizard in the lonely field!

Example 2
I was walking in the fields I walk there every day and I never get tired of this place. I walked and walked far away from my farm house. Finally I got to the top of the hill. I looked at the valley, it was all green but I noticed something grey. I rolled down the hill to investigate.

Many thanks to Ian Young and all the staff who attended the course.

I had a fantastic time working in Poplar east London with the Cine club. This is a group of children who are making their own films on the subject of what they Love. They have filmed such diverse things as Goldfish in the school tank to eating biscuits!

I went in to help them compose music to the shots that they created.

The children all worked incredibly hard - it is an afterschool club so they were all quite tired! The results will be recorded and put alongside their scenes. The final film is being shown in a full size cinema and I can't wait to see it.

I was lucky to run some workshops in the wonderful Woodlands centre in lancashire for the music services annual conference. The title of the day was 'Making every child's musical learning matter.'

My workshop involved the teachers making a story up from the 5 picture narrative map on PTM and then composing music form each section. This is something that I have done a lot in schools all over the UK.

The teachers were all really up for the challenge as they did not have long! The resulting music was excellent and showed us all the power of linking muisc to other areas of the curriculum.