Context

Grangehurst is a large primary school in the north east of Coventry. It takes most of its pupils from the local area. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is above average, as is the number identified as having learning difficulties or disabilities. About a fifth of pupils come from minority ethnic backgrounds although only a small number are in the early stages of learning English.

The work was part of a Primary National Strategy initiative looking into classroom-based action enquiry, which explored how involving pupils, particularly boys, in direct experiences could motivate writing.

Aims & principles

The intended outcomes were:

• Improvements in the quality of writing, particularly among boys, ultimately lifting a critical number of pupils from level 3 into level 4.
• More confident use of the Primary Framework to support planning of the teaching units.
• Improved understanding and use of the planning and teaching model.
• Improved use of speaking and listening and role play to extend writing.

The school involved in this project had identified the raising of boy’s attainment and the need to adopt more varied and interactive teaching styles as one of their main priorities.

The project was based in two parallel year 5 classes who were working on Narrative Unit 2: Traditional Stories, Fables, Myths and Legends. The classes were of mixed ability but contained a number of children who were underachievers. The teachers identified a group of underachieving children to target and track through the project. The majority of children in this group were boys.

Summary

A Primary school in partnership with the Local Authority focused on raising the attainment of standards in writing, and the enjoyment of writing, with underachieving children. The children were surveyed by the LA Primary Strategy Consultant before the project and their attitudes to writing were assessed. The children were then surveyed after the project and both their attainment levels and attitudes towards writing had improved.

In Practice

The year 5 teachers put together some data about their children (key stage 2 results, year 4 results and the previous term’s assessments). They chose 5-6 underachieving children to follow through the project using this data to help to assess the impact of the project. They decided to collect samples of independent writing from this identified group to place in a portfolio for the project. The LA Primary Strategy Consultant interviewed the target children before the project to assess their attitudes to literacy. The teachers decided to use the Robin Hood story as a theme for the project. 

Teasers
In the build up to the unit the teachers whetted the children’s appetites with small clues that were not explained - an arrow with part of a note attached to a wall, leaves suddenly appearing in a corner of a classroom and building up appearing to grow around the room, a wanted poster for a hooded man stuck on the display board, etc., 

PSHE
The classroom behaviour system was also redesigned to reflect the project - children were given hessian bags to place on tables to collect money tokens for good behaviour. These coins would later be exchanged for tickets to a banquet to be held at the end of the project.

The unit of work
The unit began by the children comparing a myth, a fable and a legend- exploring the features, structure and ingredients of each. They then focused on the legend genre and Robin Hood in particular. They explored three different versions of the Robin Hood story - (A traditional version, a comic book, and two different oral storyteller versions). Through the gathering ideas phase the school employed a community artist to work with the children to recreate Sherwood Forest and the castle in their classrooms.

Oral stories
It was in this transformed environment that the children heard their first oral story version told by the LA Primary Strategy Consultant, in role as Maid Marion. They then heard the version available on the Primary National Strategy website resources for this unit.

Drama
The children explored role play, used costumes, and created tableaux of their own versions of a Robin Hood story in a drama workshop led by the LA Creative Curriculum Consultant.

The Trip
The teachers then took the children on a trip to Kenilworth Castle and a local woodland park, Coombe Abbey, so the children could experience both types of environment in the legend first hand. 

“It has definitely made me realise that when children are interested or inspired by something they are more motivated to write and therefore immediately getting a better end result in their writing. It has also made me realise the importance of gathering ideas before actually writing.  It has given me ideas for ways of doing this such as through trips and drama work.” Teacher feedback

During the unit the LA Primary Strategy Consultant visited and supported the teachers (co-teaching, delivering modelled lessons/ supporting group work) once each week. The LA Creative Consultant supported the project with the drama and the use of the computers for Comic Life.

Partnerships

The teachers planned an overview of the project based on Narrative Unit 2: Traditional Stories, Fables, Myths and Legends alongside the LA Primary Strategy Consultant and the LA Creative Curriculum Consultant.

Outcomes

The unit allowed for lots of cross curricular ideas involving design and technology, history and science linked around the Robin Hood theme. At the writing phase children were offered a choice of ways to produce their own stories - The Adventures of Robin Hood and all stories were to be published into a class book. 

The project was overall very successful. The main aim had been to engage and motivate children who were underachieving and disengaged in literacy. The unit certainly had a very high impact on motivation.

“I don’t normally like writing, but this Robin Hood stuff is really great, I don’t want to stop” Ashley

“This project has made me think more about what I am writing and given me more ideas for the next time I am writing a story.” Aaron

“It has made me want to write and do my best because other people could be reading these stories. It has also inspired me to become a writer when I grow up” Natasha

“The Robin Hood project has helped me to get my levels back up” Jake

“It helped me to write because now I have had the experience of being in a castle and being in a forest and building a shelter” Amy

“Having the experiences really helped writing in detail.” Emily

“I think this Robin Hood Project has helped a lot because my teacher had made me feel like I had gone back in time to Robin Hood’s time. It was all so amazing! So the experience helped me a lot in my writing. I am so grateful” Shinani

These are all quotes taken from children at the end of the project. Not one child responded negatively to the unit of work. Parents at a recent parent’s evening also reported to the teachers that the children had been eager to talk about the project at home and had thoroughly enjoyed the unit of work.

A comparison of work samples taken before and after the unit of work reflected the positive experiences. Pupils at all levels produced work of a much greater length than they would normally. The children were interested and keen to redraft and improve their work and were able to sustain writing for longer periods than normal. Another significant change was in the vocabulary and phrases the children used. Sentences were better organised and longer. The stories had a definite legend style and a clear audience. 

Building an opportunity for the children to create their own oral stories prior to writing had a big impact on their writing. This oral rehearsal allowed them to play with the style of language best suited for the genre. They developed the oral stories in groups and then evaluated the performance of the oral story. They learnt how to hold an audience’s attention, how to use their voice for effect and how to speak clearly. The teachers also found the oral stories useful for assessment of the children’s speaking and listening abilities and future needs for development.

The work on the drama tableaux also helped the children to build their stories, helped them to explore characters, and how they would move, talk and act. As a consequence the characters in their final stories were better developed than in previous work.
The use of ICT to produce a comic strip of their stories was highly motivating and the children were immensely proud of their work. This work also helped them to develop a good sense of a plot. 

“The children loved doing the comics. The fact that the pictures were of themselves made them even more interested and they were so proud of their work when they saw them printed.  The comics helped children to get familiar with the story they were going to write and to separate narrative from speech.  They were able to think about what was important to put into the speech bubbles, which then helped them later in their writing to think out about the dialogue they would use.” Teacher feedback
One of the main impacts to come out of the project was the development of assessment for learning. Throughout the project the children developed the skills of both self and peer assessment. They assessed each group’s oral stories against some previously agreed success criteria. They assessed each other’s work during the writing phase by reading through the story so far and identifying one good point and one suggested improvement on a sticky note before giving the story back to their partner. This progressed to children self assessing and being able to identify things they needed to improve at redrafting.

Headteacher’s perspective
The Robin Hood project has been extremely successful in both motivating and inspiring the children, and raising standards of attainment in writing.  The year group involved are particularly challenging in terms of behaviour, social skills and academic attainment.  There are a number of disaffected pupils in the year group and boys’ writing in particular is a cause for concern.  The Robin Hood project fired the pupils’ imagination provided a real motivation and purpose for writing.  Recent analysis of assessment data has shown a marked improvement in the writing of most pupils, and particularly the writing of boys.

Teacher’s comments
“It really did help the children get immersed in the legend without the worry of immediately having to write.  It helped the children to get really familiar with the stories from beginning to end”

“It has definitely made me realise that when children are interested or inspired by something they are more motivated to write and therefore immediately getting a better end result in their writing.”

Resources

Download examples of pupil work

Download examples of teacher planning

The teacher used ‘Comic Life’ software which is available for Mac or Windows. Comic Life is downloadable online for a small fee small fee or a 30 day free trial. A helpful article about using Comic Life in the classroom can be found here

The following free sites enable you to write and create your own comic strips:
Garfield Comic Creator: http://tinyurl.com/amxtmh
Strip Generator: http://www.stripgenerator.com
Comic Brush: http://www.comicbrush.com

Contacts

Janette Catton, Primary Strategy Consultant,

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