Pie Corbett (born April 1954) is an English educationist, author and poet who has written or edited more than 250 books.
Corbett is best known for developing Talk For Writing, an approach to teaching writing that is widely used in UK primary schools. His work promotes creative approaches to classroom teaching, particularly through storytelling.
Corbett previously worked as a primary school teacher, headteacher, lecturer and Ofsted inspector. He has also been an educational adviser to the UK governmentWilliams, Rachel, "Many parents failing to read to children, survey shows", The Guardian, 30 April 2010.
Early life and education Pie Corbett was born and raised on a farm in Sedlescombe, East Sussex, where he was one of five brothers. After leaving school, he studied Education at East Sussex College of Higher Education.
Career Writing Corbett has written and edited more than 250 books, including poetry collections, anthologies and educational resources for teachers .
His educational works include Creating Storytellers and Writers, Talk for Writing Across the Curriculum and Talk for Writing in the Early Years, all co-authored with Julia Strong.
He co-authored Inspiring Creative Writers and Creating Curious Readers with Jamie Thomas. He also co-authored The Book of Dragons with Melanie Corbett.
His poetry collections include Evidence of Dragons, Catalysts: Poems for Writing and Dragon Cat. He has also compiled anthologies including A First Poetry Book and The Works series. He has contributed regularly to the Times Educational Supplement.
Corbett has cited Ted Hughes’ Poetry in the Making, as an important influence on his approach to encouraging children’s writing.
In 2003, Poems for Year 4, an anthology selected by Corbett and published by Macmillan, was shortlisted for the inaugural Centre for Literacy in Primary Education Poetry Award for children's poetry.
In 2005, Corbett's Story Maker's Chest, a creative-writing resource produced by Philip & Tacey, won the Education Resources Awards for Best Primary Resource. The resource was designed to support children's storytelling and creative writing through character, setting and plot prompts and other classroom activities. It was later updated as Pie Corbett's Story Writing Box.
In 2007, Corbett wrote the teachers' book accompanying the BBC educational poetry resource Let's Write Poetry, published by BBC Active. The associated BBC Two series, Let's Write Poetry: The Big Slam, used performances and workshops by children's poets to support poetry writing in primary schools.
Teaching
He was a primary school teacher with Brian Moses, where he taught maths and wrote poetry. He became a headmaster.
He was heavily involved in the creation of the i-read"i-read", Cambridge-Hitachi software at the Hitachi laboratory at Cambridge University. The purpose of the software is to help children learn how to read via "visual and auditory props".Davitt, John, "Now for something completely different", The Guardian, 10 January 2006
Corbett, while working at the University of Gloucestershire, created the Articled Teacher Scheme.Building bridges in teacher education: proceedings of the 12th Annual International Seminar for Teacher Education, the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia 24 to 30 April 1992 by William Patrick Driscoll, Warren Halloway and the International Society for Teacher Education, University of New England, 1994, Pg. 173 He also created a unique "storytelling approach" for children to remember stories with and results with improved literacy. This method was then taken up by the National Strategies 'Talk for writing' programme,"Pie Corbett’s storytelling approach", National Literacy Trust after he presented it to The National Strategies organization in 2008."Talk for Writing: Continuing professional development", The National Strategies"Demise in storytelling at home damaging children’s writing ability", Education Today, 22 June 2010 Corbett was also the creator of the Storymaking Schools Programme for the Story Museum, along with making the "poetry objectives for the National Literacy Strategy.""Storytellers" , Story Museum
In 2008, Corbett was asked by the English Ministers of Education to make a "classroom DVD on how to encourage pupils to write".Garner, Richard and Cassidy, Sarah, "Poor SATs results in writing prompt teaching reforms", The Independent, 6 August 2008
Talk for Writing
Pie Corbett is now best known in schools as the creator of the Talk for Writing approach.
Bibliography "Dragon Cat" (2025) "Talk for Writing across the Curriculum with DVD: How to teach non-fiction writing 5-12 years (2011) Talk for Writing in the Early Years: How to teach story and rhyme, involving families 2-5 years Jumpstart! Literacy: Games and Activities for Ages 7–14 (2004) All in the Start Writing PoetryAgnew, Kate, "Critics' choice", The Guardian, 18 October 2005 Jumpstart! Storymaking: Games and Activities for Ages 7–12 (2009)"Jumpstart! Storymaking: Games and Activities for Ages 7–12" by Pie Corbett, Taylor & Francis US, 2009 Jumpstart! Poetry: Games and Activities for Ages 7–12 (2008)"Jumpstart! Poetry: Games and Activities for Ages 7–12" by Pie Corbett, Taylor & Francis US, 2008 The works: poems for key stage 2 – every kind of poem you will ever need for the Literacy Hour (2006)"The works: poems for key stage 2 – every kind of poem you will ever need for the Literacy Hour" by Pie Corbett, Macmillan Children's Books, 2006 Cats, hats, and hippos (2004)"Cats, hats, and hippos" by Pie Corbett, Black Rabbit Books, 2004 Chatting Cheetahs And Jumping Jellyfish (2004) Literacy: What Works? (2003)Hofkins, Diane, "It's what you say and the way that you say it", Times Educational Supplement, 24 October 2003 Writing (1997)"Writing" by Pie Corbett, Nelson Thornes, 1997
References