THRASS TWO-DAY CERTIFICATE,
SURREY, OCT 18-19, 2007

A very comprehensive training course presented in an enthusiastic and professional manner. I will change my teaching. It also highlighted areas for my future development e.g. Cued Articulation.

Superb can’t wait to implement all I’ve learnt. After nearly 30 years of teaching SEN I’ve found a system that is logical, systematic and straight forward! I am anxious that I won’t do justice to all I’ve heard. But hopefully after a few months it will fall into place.

Concept easy to grasp. Excellent delivery. Very convincing argument. Motivating.

Excellent course, very informative. We have been using THRASS in school and this course will help us to use it better and help our children read and spell.

Found it all very interesting and a logical way to teach our complicated language. If it had been around 20 years ago it would have saved a lot of heartache for my own children. The second day was heavy going towards the end purely because there is so much to take on board.

Very enthusiastic presentation. Varied approaches engaged listeners. Presenter passionate about his subject. Many suggestions how to implement THRASS in a range of educational settings. Positive and more positive attitude to how to get the best from young people.

An excellent course. I have been using THRASS for several years in another school and am very pleased that the staff at Meath are now able to use it too.

Very well presented – obviously a very skilled teacher – with excellent educational background. I agreed with many points but disagreed with others and feel that we must discuss this further –as a school and adapt our policies to the needs of our children. The system as a whole is very much geared towards main stream children. I would point out that if the programme was followed as recommended then this would add up to about two hours a week. The teaching of literacy leaves about two hours for the rest of the literacy curriculum. Is this enough time? It was also interesting to note how well this system has been adopted by the schools in other countries – perhaps this is because they tend to use a more didactic approach to teaching – in Britain we have a history of a wide variety of teaching styles and a legacy of “old” teachers who have been trained in a less formal style. Very interesting.

I have very much enjoyed the content and presentation of the course. I feel that much of what was said makes absolute sense, and appreciate the recognition that there can be variation in its application to suit our setting. The pace of the course was fast (enforced on you I know) and I feel therefore that some staff may need reinforcement (revision which we will do at local level). It would have been great to have had more opportunity to view practical teaching of the approach, particularly in the THRASS School of excellence. I think this may have helped embed the approach but appreciate that time restrictions prevented this. Thanks very much – I’m completely signed up to this approach!

Good to see how to use the different resources that we have in school. Good presentation. Given me a wider knowledge of the different terms used with the children.

Lots of good ideas to use. A lot of information in two days.

Very upbeat – kept interest going all day. Good ideas for all levels of ability – very fast – will need to revisit things just like my pupils!

Clear, comprehensive. Made me question how my dyslexic child was taught and how he still struggles as a teenager, wanting to spell light ‘LIT’ as it is quicker. He still identifies lower case letters by sound.

A lot to take in, in only two days but delivered very enthusiastically. Seems to be a very useful resource. I will take it back to discuss with my Speech Therapist and Learning Support assistants and hope to implement it in the KS2 unit.

Good ideas. Pacy delivery. Lots to absorb in two days.

Good ideas for developing activities and approaches that we are using in class. A lot to take in!

Well presented. Lots of great ideas on how to use THRASS. Will now adapt what we have been doing with the children to make it more worthwhile and fun for them.

Very interesting and a fast pace. Great ideas on what to do activity-wise with our children in the way of games. Motivated and energetic presenter but could be a little less defensive when questioned!

Enjoyable and challenging. Made me keen and enthusiastic to use it but it will take time for all the elements to fall into place. Pleased that there is an e-mail course to help us with this programme.

An informative course – has provided me with lots of ideas for using THRASS in the classroom. Perhaps too heavily directed towards Foundation Stage classes, rather than with older classes, or with classes that have already progressed past Stage one and two.

A very full and informative course. Appreciate that there was a lot of valuable information to put across but would have really appreciated time to discuss with Alan and fellow colleagues in other work places how to implement with specific groups of children we have, i.e. created ideas together and discuss difficulties that we might encounter etc.

Evidently huge passion and commitment for teaching of literacy skills. Some very credible key concepts. Found chart very context-specific, cultural-specific. Applicable for very visual learners (mind maps). In danger of becoming a commercial venture. I struggled a bit with the ideology that the majority of children achieving means that the teacher can move on. Some worry that the Government key idea of “Every Child Matters’ may be overlooked.

It’s been interesting and made me think a lot! Like the key concept of grouping sounds together but do have issues over regional variations – confusing rather than flexible. Very visual way of learning – not all children learn visually. [“What! Every stage is multisensory. Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (VAK) activities are used all the time, starting with children pretending to be birds and rabbits.” Alan]

Very useful course. Has enabled me to build on my very limited, existing THRASS knowledge. Now feel enabled, to deliver and explore THRASS, and confident enough to adapt to the individual’s needs. Using THRASS, Piaget and Cued Articulation will help our children so much. Lots of information packed in, but did feel a little intimidated at times on a more personal level.

Excellent. It has provided me with further ideas and how I can adapt THRASS to suit current class.

I thought the presentation was mostly good, interesting and well presented but would have preferred it if you hadn’t spent so much time talking about the politics of teaching phonics and how THRASS is better than other systems and more time on how to use and teach THRASS in the classroom. Also, I teach Infants in a Speech and Language Unit who all have poor phonological awareness and I didn’t feel from the course that THRASS addresses this area of difficulty sufficiently and that its strength is teaching phonics (reading and spelling) to children who don’t have phonological difficulties, rather than those who do. However, I will trial it and see how it goes.

Very comprehensive training. Excellent use of visual resources. Clear delivery and explanations. Can see how we can use it with our children, who have severe and complex speech, language and communications needs, even though we would have to differentiate to their level.

Interesting two days presented by a very enthusiastic Alan Davies. Excellent resources. Fast but thoroughly clear presentation – plenty of opportunity to ask questions. Agree that children can learn names ‘phoneme’ and digraph etc even if they have learning difficulties.

The course has enabled the whole school staff to have consistency in training to enable them to have increased knowledge to implement the programme. It will give us the framework around which we can implement phonological awareness and metacognition. There was a large amount to cover for a group of staff who had a wide range of existing knowledge of phonological teaching. Would it be better to offer courses at different levels?

Lots to think about.

Scheme would be useful when used by whole school – at the moment whole school are using Jolly Phonics but are seeking accredited scheme to use. I will report back to Literacy Co-ordinator! Found the presentation a little hard to follow at times. A lot of information in a short time. Sorry Alan, I did find you a little arrogant at times and that may have blocked some of my learning ability to answer questions and enjoyment.

Well presented, excellent knowledge of language and speech, as well as teaching methodology. A new way that is functional, makes sense and “multi-dimensional”. You were NOT rude and arrogant. A decade down the line this, I believe, will be the new “norm”.

Excellent! Extremely useful framework background information and ideas for practical activities. The challenge now is learning how to apply this in my particular setting!

I have enjoyed the two-day course and learnt a lot about the English language! I wish I had known about this teaching method when my children were learning to read.

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