Context

We are a two-form entry school and have improving writing as a major focus in our school development plan. In October 2008 we held an Everybody Writes Day which involved writing about aliens landing on the school, pirates, witches’ spells – a real mixture to enthuse the children about writing and to encourage them to use their imaginations and not be stifled by success criteria constraints! The day went really well which inspired us to run another whole-school writing project.

Attitudes towards writing and attainment before the project

As in many schools, there is a mixed attitude towards writing – for some it comes naturally and they approach all writing tasks with enthusiasm, whilst others find writing a chore. We wanted to continue to enthuse those already keen to write whilst engaging those who find it more difficult.

Aims & principles

We wanted to have a whole school project that would involve every child in the school – writing is currently very class/year group based and, apart from whole school assemblies, the children do not often have a chance to share their work with those from across the other key stages.

In Practice

The plan was to write a whole school story, and as we are a two-form entry school, we decided to write two stories, one for each class within each year group.

The children in Reception created characters for the stories through a range of creative drawing and role play activities. The chosen characters were then introduced to Year 1 who gave the characters a personality through hot seating and role plays. The outcome for this year was to produce a character profile for each character which was then given to Year 2.

Year 2 used the characters as a stimulus to create a ‘world’ for them to exist in. Here the children engaged in a sensory approach to create mood and atmosphere for the settings. This stimulated words which helped them to write descriptive opening to the stories, to help set the scene for Year 3.

Year 3 took all the ideas created in Key Stage 1 and developed the story plots, created the problems to be solved and developed the characters in more detail.

Year 4 took the story further using the story start as a stimulus and identified clues on which to progress and develop the plot. Children worked collaboratively and planned a range of further scenarios. A selection of ideas were taken and used to create the climax for the story.

Finally, Year 5 wrote story endings by working in groups to plan ideas which were shared and then used to write a range of endings, whereupon one was picked as the final edit.

Year 6 became the production team and edited, illustrated and published the stories. Each story was distributed to each class and read to the children. Copies are available in each class room and in the school libraries for children to loan and take home.

Outcomes

Two colour story books were produced - Happy Land and The Magical Kingdom. The books were copied and copies given to each class.

Attitudes and attainment after the project

Children were asked about their thoughts about writing before embarking on the project. Many children commented on a dislike of the physical act of writing but enjoyed idea-generating activities.

Following each class’s input into the stories the children were asked to express their feelings again. This time we found that many children had become so involved in the activities and the stories that they didn’t realise they were writing. Sam in Year 2 tellingly commented “But we haven’t done any writing,”

We felt that the project had allowed us to develop a range of activities and opportunities to write that were different from the childrens’ preconceived idea that writing was done sitting at a desk with a blank piece of paper.

Legacy

We have created two books which will last for a long time and are available for loan in the school libraries.

Following this project, we held another Everybody Writes Day in the autumn and will look to creating another whole school project in the future.

We are currently looking into improving our outside area and this could lead to further possible writing opportunities (depending on the improvements made).

Resources

£200 - We colour copied, laminated and bound the stories for each class. This was the only real expense.

Final thought

If we had to do this project again we would probably reconsider the timing – we wrote the stories in the summer term and with SATs, trips and productions this proved to be a bit chaotic and stressful at times – time was very short in the end!!

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