The Third Summer School of Reading for teachers opens in Brno on 12 August

The motto of this year’s Summer School is a quote of John Hattie, a New Zealand education expert: “Every student deserves a great teacher, not by chance, but by design”:

“Every student...       
not just some students, such as those whose parents can afford it or those who are lucky enough to live on a street that allows them to attend an amazing school

...deserves...          
yes, students have the right to a quality education

...a great teacher...   
one who develops strong relationships, knows his or her content and how to teach it, and evaluates his or her impact

...not by chance...       
Children’s education should not be left to chance; on the contrary, children’s education should be left not to whatever sense of challenge or level of expectation a teacher may have, but to an appropriate high level of challenge and expectation

...but by design.”          
there are learning designs that work, when used at the right time.

Throughout those six days in Brno, the participants in the Summer School of Reading will look for answers to questions such as what they can do to help their pupils to learn even better, how to conduct teaching so that children develop into thoughtful readers and how the various members of the teaching staff can help each other to improve instruction.

As part of the various workshops, they will discover the literary space and seek to interconnect readership objectives with educational objectives while newcomer teachers will deal with topics and practical demonstrations of how to start working with the reading continuum. “The Summer School is intended to help all the participants improve their understanding of what reading and readership is and how to teach it. As their reading literacy develops, children also improve in other subjects on a regular basis. They know what to do when they do not understand a text,” says Hana Košťálová, Programme Director of the Helping Schools Succeed project, adding that this is the path to making teaching more effective for every pupil.

A few samples of this year’s programme
The all-round focus of this meeting of primary school teachers is also borne out by the programme streams:

• On Tuesday, the teachers will try out, for example, the reading of schematic diagrams used in sciences. Through analysing students’ work, they will discuss the question of To Whom Does Crimea Belong?, which they will analyse from the perspective of different players.

• Teachers-beginners are the audiences for the stream called Beginnings of the Work with the Reading Continuum, which describes the child’s development from a beginning to an independent thoughtful reader.

• On Wednesday, teachers will delve into lesson sharing and colleagues’ cooperation, which is a highly valuable tool for the development of every teacher’s teaching. It gives them an opportunity to inspire each other and gain feedback from colleagues.

The programme of each day will start with joint reading every morning. Workshops will follow. “For example, we will demonstrate the possible course followed by a conversation over pupils’ performance and over the lesson in which the performance was delivered in order to discover the ‘personal theories’ of the teachers participating in the conversation. And we will then try it out ourselves in colleagues’ and our own lessons,” Hana Košťálová gives an example, adding that for their practical life, teachers should take away the finding that teachers’ decisions are influenced by convictions and personal theories of what works in teaching and learning, and how.

This year’s Summer School of Reading will again see a meeting of the senior staff members of 11 readership schools involved in the Helping Schools Succeed project. The participants will evaluate the work done so far and prepare plans and specific objectives for the following year.