Oops!: Helping Children Learn Accidentally

by Hywel Roberts, Ian Gilbert (Editor)

This is about engaging children and young people in great learning so well they barely know they are learning, let alone learning well. Drawing on Hywel’s years of experience using drama and ‘The Mantle of the Expert’ (and much more besides) to draw the best out of young people, this book is about the dance that happens between teachers and learners, it’s about the importance of relationships in that engagement, it’s about how to build and sustain rapport with learners. And it’s about finding a delight and a joy in the process of learning, enhanced by those spontaneous, serendipitous events that help you remember just why you came into the job in the first place.

A book of happy accidents and improvisations that would be a lovely addition to any teacher’s bookshelf …
Ian McMillan, Poet, broadcaster and comedian

The voice of a true pioneer, clear and sure in the belief that teaching is an amalgam of so many things beyond ‘subject knowledge’. The book races along at an almost breathless speed-just like the writer.
Luke Abbott, Director of Mantle of the Expert

Oops! is about principles. It’s about a mentality that encourages us to drop the reins of rigid, boring schemes of work and instead create learning that is exciting and relevant!
Jamie Portman, Assistant Headteacher, Campsmount Technology College

Hywel Roberts’ message is that engagement is the message and in delivering it he’s sharp, he’s intellectually underpinned, he’s effervescent, he’s the teacher you wished your teachers had seen teach.
Phil Beadle, teacher, broadcaster, author

If you want the children in your school to make great progress and remember you as a teacher who made learning fun, dip into this book for inspiration and ideas.
Diane Heritage, Deputy Lead Associate, North of England National College

Genres: Teaching, Education, Nonfiction

279 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2012

Reviews

[Millie Jones]

If you read this book as a teacher and do not feel inspired, you may be in the wrong profession. This was everything I needed it to be and more. Cannot wait to ‘be brave’ and create some magic in a real life classroom (🤞) soon! Diolch, Hywel! Passion and excitement well and truly reignited.

[Mark Barrett]

Packed full of great ideas and anecdotes, which empower the teachers who know what they are doing to embrace their maverickness and teach kids in the ways that interest them and make them learn. It doesn't so much tell you how to teach better, but reminds you how. Written by a teacher for teachers, in a great style that assumes you already know what you are doing and treats its readers with respect.

Having seen Hywel speak, I must encourage you (insist that you) do everything you can to see him yourself. He is inspirational and, with his explanations and demonstrations, turns this into a five star book.

[Lauren]

Hywel did a session with us on our teacher training about creating awe and wonder in the classroom!
The session was amazing, it summed up everything I wanted teaching to be, fun, engaging, relevant...

A few months into teaching and I had started to forget all of this. The need for lesson plans, and the drive towards assessment dates had me in a panic.

Over Christmas I got all my work finished, folders complete and handed in, and decided to give this book a try.

It's a reminder of everything fun that should be obvious! Inspired me to try to be more B.R.A.V.E in my future lessons.

Give it a read it's worth it!

[Sarah]

Fab bits of inspiration after the school break.

[Ross McGill]

Full of content; practicality and pedagogy.

[Lisibo]

Taken me so long as I wanted to take it in rather than 'gorging' on it and not being able to digest it.

[Sarah]

This book has had a dramatic impact on my teaching, not because it's changed what I do, but because it has validated what I choose to do - put my children's enjoyment of learning as a priority.

[Jonathan]

fab book. Chock full of great ideas.