Open up a world of discovery for children by taking on the Mantle

Having initially been sceptical about the Mantle of the Expert, teacher Chris Frame is now a convert after witnessing how this role-play teaching method fires pupils’ imaginations and engages them in learning
25th January 2019, 12:00am
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Open up a world of discovery for children by taking on the Mantle

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/open-world-discovery-children-taking-mantle

I was standing, head down, looking forlorn and sorry for myself, in a mixed Year 1/2 classroom that wasn’t mine. Two other adults, playing the roles of my fellow saboteurs, were with me. We had been caught trying to wreck an art exhibition by the artist Hundertwasser. We disagreed with his views on art, so we had tried to flood the gallery to prevent others from being exposed to his opinions.

And now we were being interviewed by the children to ascertain our reasoning and to enable us to defend ourselves. The questions were pretty well articulated, and we duly gave answers, until one young girl, in Year 1, stopped us in our tracks and asked, “What messages do you want art to give?”

If I hadn’t already been sold on the pedagogy of Mantle of the Expert (MoE), I was then. I was blown away, not just by the question but by the incredulity with which it was delivered and the values held by the team of children that the girl represented. If MoE was responsible for this articulation, I wanted to know more.

What I discovered was that the approach was created by Dorothy Heathcote in the 1970s. It is a jigsaw puzzle of pedagogies and frameworks that link together to create a context and purpose for learning, a set of values that drives thinking and decision-making, and an inquiry-based approach to learning that is rigorous and robust. It demands much more from the children - and the teacher - than conventional approaches do, but it delivers much more, too.

At its heart, is the team, client and commission model: a fictional client requires an expert team to complete some work (the commission). A fictional world is created through drama and co-construction - a world in which the story operates, characters are played and tensions (things that might go wrong) are strategically introduced by the teacher. The teacher helps the children to think through the decisions they make, move the story on and provide opposing views to be discussed.

A MoE context can last as little or as long as the curriculum demands. Contexts have been a day long, a week long or as long as three-quarters of a term, depending on how much of the curriculum can be covered by it.

MoE is also a true values-based pedagogy. The team members decide on the values that they will abide by and how these dictate the actions they will and won’t undertake to complete the commissions.

We started MoE at my school at the request of my headteacher, Dot Patton, who took up her post at our small village primary almost three years ago. I distinctly remember being very unsure about the approach. I couldn’t see where the “teaching” that I had practised for 15 years fitted into it. But having experienced it, I was soon hooked.

In primary education, we have been searching for years for a real and authentic purpose for learning and producing work.

Although fictional in nature, MoE gives you that purpose for learning and motivates children to produce high-quality work in order to meet the requirements set by the “client”. The children know that the client is fictional, they know that it’s the teacher setting the work, but they are still motivated and engaged in learning.

In my experience, children in an MoE class ask more questions and, like the girl I mentioned at the beginning, those questions tend to be big, open questions that engender thinking well beyond what you would expect from young children.

The children thrive in a high-demand, low-threat atmosphere - expert learning is demanded and supported, and the outcomes are enthralling and exceptional. I have found that the children really care and they want to help the client. Their work, especially their writing, is significantly enhanced by the dramatic imagination required and the tangible purpose for the work.

Since that first experience, I have participated in the NEU teaching union’s Mantle of the Expert advanced teachers’ course, led by Tim Taylor and Luke Abbott.

And in the past year, my class and I have travelled to and colonised Mars, considered Boudicca’s actions in rebelling against the Romans, invented an island kingdom that was under attack and was ruled by a paranoid queen, and discovered a Viking burial mound. We are about to negotiate with the leader of a country who is debating the reinstatement of the death penalty.

MoE requires practice and an in-depth study of the literature around the approach, which can be found on the MoE website (mantleoftheexpert.com).

Fundamentally, it also requires you to do two things if you want success.

Let go of your habits

First, you have to let go of how you would traditionally teach. The best moments of learning and thinking when I have used MoE have come from situations that you couldn’t predict. For example, the writing the children did about Boudicca before and after the battles with the Romans really captured the children’s understanding of motives and character intentions, and it contained vivid descriptions of physical and emotional characteristics. Also, the debate we had about whether we should send a criminal back to Earth from Mars had a very different outcome than I had planned for, and the discussion was respectfully heated, passionate and important. The children were compassionate and fair in their judgements and solutions in a way that we can only dream of when sorting playground disputes. To get these results, you have to trust the process, the children and yourself. Knocking the learning back to your plan every time a deviation looks likely will mean that you do not get the results you could have achieved.

Know your curriculum inside-out

Second, you need to really know your school curriculum. The children will explore every corner of knowledge on a topic and you need to be ready with the answers. We have a board in the classroom showing all the curriculum links that the children find in the work we are doing. Last year, it included the questions: “How do rivers start?” (from the Roman invasion of Britain MoE context); “How do you plot coordinates in 3D in space?” (from the “colonisation of Mars” MoE context); “How are islands formed?” (from an RE topic on obedience); and, “How is water made?” (colonisation of Mars.)

So, yes, I am a convert, having never thought that I would be. I’m still beginning my journey but I would certainly recommend that every teacher gives MoE a try.

It can be scary to step outside of your comfort zone, but the rewards, for me at least, have been huge.


Chris Frame is key stage 2 leader at Dogmersfield Primary School in Hampshire

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