COUCH TO 5K WRITING WORKSHOP with David Didau

David Didau is an educator, author, and professional learning leader known for his evidence-informed work on teaching, writing, and curriculum. He is the author of several highly regarded books including What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong? and The Secret of Literacy. David writes in his blog The Learning Spy, a widely read platform supporting educators to translate research into classroom practice.

Writing is one of the most cognitively demanding tasks students face. Inspired by the Couch to 5k running app, Writing Fitness rethinks the way we develop students' writing offering a structured, cumulative model to build fluency, precision, and confidence over time.

This workshop proposes a model of explicit instruction, deliberate practice, and curriculum alignment, offering a tightly structured approach to writing instruction that breaks down complex skills into teachable steps. Grounded in cognitive science, grammar instruction, and classroom-tested routines.

This full day workshop will include:

• Intro to live lesson: attention, meaning and mastery

• Live Demonstration Lesson

• Speech, thought & writing: the sentence as the unit of thought

• The principles of gapless instruction

• Dovetailing with the principles of cognitive science and explicit instruction

• Introduction to the deconstructed essay resources

• Introduction to Slow Writing and the creative sentences resource

• Discussion on how to integrate writing in your curriculum

• Mastery assessment - how to make sure writing instruction is effective

Ideal for English teachers from Middle to Upper Primary and High School and beyond, this day offers a practical roadmap for improving writing outcomes-especially for disadvantaged students.