Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Wickedly good
WRITING
Entering a national competition en masse has produced some
surprising outcomes for the children at Garstang Primary
School, says deputy head Suzanne Thomas
L
ike many primary schools around Awards competition, we decided we would applying skills learned in school? It was
the country, writing is one of our enter en masse. absolutely perfect.
school improvement priorities. And At first we saw the competition as a
just like for many other schools, springboard to raise the profile of writing. An author’s life
the focus is on boys. We have introduced At our school, enjoyment and pleasure are For the competition our pupils were given
spelling and handwriting schemes of work, at the heart of our reading curriculum, yet complete artistic freedom. After a ‘wow’
along with fabulous strategies such as Talk it is ‘purpose’ rather than pleasure that start, they began the process at school. We
for Writing, each of which has helped us to has traditionally been the reason we give used the resources on the website to inspire
steadily improve achievement in writing at for writing. The competition was one way and ignite ideas, including a video of Cressida
our school. However, we are always looking of redressing this balance, as The Wicked Cowell explaining what inspired her to
for further ways to improve, so when a Young Writer Awards encourage young become a writer; they were powerful tools.
colleague spotted the Wicked Young Writer people to write about the things that Through the process, our pupils gained
are important to them. They some insight into the lives of authors – they
are able to write in any form were given timescales, had a variety of
they choose (prose, poetry editors (peers, teachers and parents) and
or nonfiction); and there is a were given lots of feedback. Over a
maximum word limit but no six-week period we set a number of
minimum – a factor that gave deadlines: start at school; go home and write
our pupils even more freedom. your first draft; bring it back to school for
In addition, we saw this as an feedback and editing before taking it back
opportunity to get parents home to write the finished piece. Due to the
involved. Our homework policy nature of the project, we were able to do
includes asking pupils to away with curriculum-led success criteria
complete a themed, creative and instead we developed a set of feedback
project four times per year. forms for the children to use together.
We decided that the Wicked Rather than judging each other’s work on
Young Writer Awards could be how many fronted adverbials were present,
one of these homework topics. learners gave their feedback based on their
Creative and independent, enjoyment and understanding of each other’s
SUZANNE THOMAS is
deputy head at Garstang
Primary School