Ros's Journey

Primary, middle, and secondary school teacher

Extensive experience working with pupils for which English is an additional language (EAL)

Many years in Senior Leadership

Head of Primary overseas

Advisor for Assessment for Kirklees Local Authority

Primary Strategy Manager for Education Bradford

12 years as an Ofsted inspector

Five years as an Advanced Skills Assessor

20 years as an independent consultant supporting schools

Creator of Big Writing, VCOP, and The Criterion Scale

Published several books on primary writing and assessment with Oxford University Press

Creator of Talk:Write

Current Governor at Parklands Primary School, Leeds


Publications

Ros has written a number of publications on writing, talk, curriculum, and assessment. Her latest books are published by Oxford University Press. Ros has recently written an exciting and amusing biography which centres on her journeys and adventures through life. She is also working on a series of illustrated children’s books that are fun and educational.


Talk and Writing Voice

The power and impact of ability to talk fluently and expressively on children’s learning became clear when, in the space of nine years, Ros assessed over 22,000 pieces of writing in the course of her work and in building The Criterion Scale for Assessment of Writing.

There was a clear correlation between those children who failed to score many ticks on aspects of writing like fluency, expression, ambitious vocabulary, range of connectives used, and so on – and the districts or socio-economic backgrounds of the community OR the fact that they were in the early stages of learning in English as an additional language.

Ros worked for many years in schools with children from challenging backgrounds and knew that their ability to express themselves in both talk and writing was below that of most children from more privileged communities, but she had not seen consistent and clear evidence in what could almost have been seen as a research project in its own right, if the purposes had not been more specific – the accurate assessment of children’s writing abilities. This revelation, which was – at the end of the day – common sense and not surprising, did lead to more reading into research on the subject.

It was when Ros met the work of Doctor Todd Risley, Professor Emeritus in the USA, that her eyes were opened. He gave Ros the ability to quote statistics on language and acquisition of vocabulary that she had not met before. During the first decade of the 21st century, Ros found she was a lone voice talking about the importance and impact of planned and fluent talk, the acquisitions of an ever widening and challenging vocabulary and the importance of repeated composition of interesting sentence structures through talk.


Keynote Speaking

From writing to talk, curriculum to assessment, Ros will speak thoughtfully and humorously to make a lasting impact on all who listen. The thousands of teachers who have heard Ros speak over the years can attest to her influence.

With modern technology, it is easier than ever to receive high impact training online. Over a video call, Ros can offer one on one sessions, staff meetings, leadership team meetings, moderation discussions, and much more.

Ros no longer does extended training sessions but she can still have a huge impact in up to three hour sessions (including a refreshments break).


Curriculum

Ros’s most rewarding and challenging experience came when she managed the start up of a large school in Qatar. Writing the systems, processes, and curriculum was a huge task and the success of the school was a very proud moment.

Curriculum development is an important topic at the moment with lots of schools putting time and effort into creating their own. Creating a curriculum that provides a broad, balanced, and challenging programme of learning through a cyclical spectrum of creative and original experiences, is a highly skilled task requiring in depth understanding and years of experience.

Ros advises on the processes of building a curriculum while providing exemplar materials and authentic ideas with sincerity and humour.


Twitter

Ros is active on Twitter and has made many great friends and professional connections. Ros has also had the pleasure of speaking at many grassroots events such as BrewEds through colleagues met on social media. Ros was listed as one of the top ten educational voices.


Chartered College

Through Twitter, Ros has developed a lasting friendship with Dame Alison Peacock and Professor Sam Twiselton OBE, CEO and Vice President respectively. Ros is proud to be an Affiliate Member and strong advocate of the Chartered College for Teachers.


BBC Teach

In November 2019, Ros was delighted to participate in a BBC Teach Live Lesson. The topic was remembrance and covered cross curricular learning, the difficulty of discussing conflict and loss, and how to get children to think critically and analytically. She has since edited and proofed scripts for subsequent recordings.


Harrow International

Ros was proud to be on the Global Advisory Panel for Harrow International Schools. Take a look at their great work here.