About us

The four key principles of Everybody Writes are:

• Taking writing beyond the classroom
• Giving children authentic events to write about
• Finding real audiences for children's writing
• Exploring writing across the curriculum

An Everybody Writes project could involve staging an alien spaceship crash landing in the playground to trigger a whole school newspaper writing project; running a series of after school workshops for parents and their children to write and illustrate a family history, or working with a graphic designer and the Local Authority to create leaflets promoting recycling to teenagers.

How do we know that it works?

In 2009, Everybody Writes was independently evaluated by the University of Sheffield. Researchers examined the impact of the Everybody Writes approach on pupils’ attitudes to writing and on the standard of their writing. You can download the full report, but here are some highlights from their evaluation.

According to the University of Sheffield, the Everybody Writes approach to writing has been highly successful in a number of areas:

• Everybody Writes has had a very positive impact on pupils, teachers and schools
• Everybody Writes has had a positive impact on boys’ attitudes to writing
• Everybody Writes has had a positive impact on children who are reluctant writers and those at risk of underachieving

“This evaluation… has provided evidence that Everybody Writes has been outstandingly successful in meeting its objectives. A wide range of innovative and creative work has taken place in schools which has impacted on pupil engagement and achievement and teachers’ subject and pedagogical content knowledge. The projects have left a valuable legacy for other teachers of writing through the website case studies.” — University of Sheffield

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