Context

The improvement of writing outcomes was one of our school targets and as Literacy Coordinator I was challenged to raise its profile with staff and inspire all children to believe they were writers. With careful planning the children were given the opportunity to learn through play and develop writing as part of the creative curriculum. I hoped we could make a difference to how children and teachers think and feel about writing.

Last year I took part in a year 1 writing initiative called ‘I Don’t Want to Write, I Want to Play’. As part of a small group of teachers funded by Stockport Council, I planned some literacy framework units of work that would develop creativity and promote ways of using continuous provision within the classroom, i.e., role-play, small world, construction etc.

Aims & principles

• To inspire children to believe in themselves as writers
• To improve the majority of boys’ writing through the cross-curricular and creative approach
• To create an environment that engages and encourages children to write independently

In Practice

Our school’s aim during the previous two years has been to create a 2- year rolling programme of writing activities with more creativity and cross-curricular links. Our topic of choice for key stage 1 at the time we met with the Everybody Writes team was the Ted Hughes book The Iron Man. We chose to base our project around something we had already begun to adapt and after incorporating the new literacy framework, we wanted to develop the cross-curricular link. 

When planning for the topic we also considered the classroom environment. What opportunities were available for children to access resources independently?  Continuous provision stations such as the writing corner, role play, small world, model making were already set up in our classrooms and I wanted to show that through these areas children could develop their writing, ideas and consolidate their learning. 

The Everybody Writes project was part of a one-term experiment for year. It was not a one-week or day activity and it needed detailed planning and some timetable changes. I thought if we started small it could be something to share and develop with the rest of our school.

We took the text of The Iron Man as a stimulus point. This is not an obvious choice of text for year one children but they were gripped by the first chapter. The following specified project activities took part over approximately four weeks but this could be easily adapted. 

Chapter 1 - The Coming of the Iron Man
The first activity was to create our own Iron Man for our classroom. In groups we started to cover huge boxes and long carpet-holder tubes with silver paper and foil. The children had a great time and there was a real element of teamwork and communication.

At the end of the day we purposely left all the pieces of the Iron Man in a pile on the table. The children went home and the teachers put together the huge models in each classroom to mirror the chapter in the story (where he pieces himself together - minus his ear).

On Monday morning the children returned to school and were excited and amazed at their model and how it was stood towering in the corner of the room and not on the table. The Iron Man had scrawled a huge note of greeting to the children. To capture the moment we talked about important times in history and that this was something the children needed to record and report for future generations. As it had snowed heavily this helped to create more suspense and the wonder of what was happening.

The children started to record in their Iron Man diary the events of the day and we recorded the children’s initial reaction on the easi-speak microphones. We also asked the caretaker and headteacher to report and record what information they knew. During their independent activities, children started to add a few extra parts to the Iron Man such as buttons and gave him some metal to eat. We also added an old remote control.

Using the computer sound recorder and echo effects (and a willing husband) we created the voice of the Iron Man so he was able to come alive and send messages to the children through the interactive whiteboard.  As the first message was played thanking the children for finding him food, the whole room was in silence and then erupted in complete excitement. You can hear this in the sound files.

PLAY SOUND FILE

The children worked on their diaries throughout the week responding to his messages and their own thoughts. 
Another writing activity the children carried out was to imagine where the Iron Man came from. They created a picture scene of their own fantasy ideas i.e., the moon, iron land, Australia and so on. They thought of adjectives to describe the place and then wrote some simple sentences about it. 

Chapter 2 - The Return of the Iron Man
For this section of the book, we decided to focus on a piece of drama. We played an audio clip of the farmers discussing what they should do about the Iron Man.

PLAY SOUND FILE

We then placed the children into small groups and they acted out the scene where Hogarth runs to tell his father and the other farmers about what he has seen. We also used the freeze frame technique to get the children to give their character’s opinion of the situation. Some children found this quite difficult but it gave other children who find the physical aspects of writing a struggle a chance to shine. 
The end of this chapter also lent itself to a good circle time, dealing with Hogarth’s mixed feelings of jubilation then guilt for trapping the Iron Man. 

Chapter 3 - What’s to be Done with the Iron Man?
Following the dramatic return of the Iron Man emerging from under the ground, I acted out giving a news report about the story and the children had a go at reporting it. Later that week we created our own story on school grounds. I planted a silver piece of metal in our environment area which our caretaker came to report on. (We had previously thought of creating a metal hand partially sticking out of the ground, which might be something other teachers thinking of running a similar project could do). We made the piece of silver look vaguely like an ear (the iron man only has one ear in the story) and took the children to see it – was this the missing ear? 
The children completely suspended their disbelief and really joined in with the story. I had asked one of the children’s parents who was a police officer to come in and take a statement. Children gave their own accounts of what they thought had happened and there were a few other elaborated versions of their own sightings at home!! The police officer took the ear away in a specimen bag to be analysed by forensics. 

We then set up the classroom as a news office and put the children into news teams. They each had a go at reporting the news and even included a weather report!! 

For the written piece of work I gave them a differentiated worksheet in the form of a front cover of a newspaper. Some children created their own headlines and wrote some excellent recounts. Some children typed their report. 

The next day the police officer returned with the results and a letter from the forensics team. It was not an ear from our Iron Man! So in turn this raised questions and good talking points, such as were there other Iron Men? Where did the metal specimen come from? 

Chapter 4 - The Space Being and the Iron Man
As the story continued we were introduced to the terrifying space dragon. We gathered a lot of modelling materials and in groups children made their own version of the space dragon. This worked as a really good team building and problem solving exercise as well as a D &T process.

The children also wrote a character description of the dragon.

Chapter 5 - The Iron Man’s Challenge
The final part of the book is where the space dragon and the Iron Man go head to head in a challenge to save the world. For the final section the children created their own cartoon strip of the events. 

We concluded the project with a poignant message from the Iron Man who talked about how it was down to each and every one of us to create a peaceful and loving planet for us to live in. 

Examples of other activities carried out throughout the topic:

D&T Andrew Goldsworthy sculptures – Using pieces of everyday metal objects such as nails, forks, bottle tops etc, the children created a group Iron Man sculpture. The children then took a picture and removed the objects. 
ICT – The children drew pictures of Hogarth and the Iron Man for their topic book front covers. Children also used 2 simple for some of their writing.

Art - Sketches/shading of what they believed the Iron Man to look like.

Numeracy - problem solving i.e.  ‘The Iron Man’s foot measures one metre by one metre. Mark out his foot and estimate how many children would fit in his shoe’.

P& S /Geography - ‘Our planet’ debate on the benefits of having transport / not having transport/ utilities such as washing machines /cookers and the problems of landfills- we don’t have an Iron Man to eat it all away! 

Outcomes

The project became more than just about writing. The Iron Man became a part of our everyday life for the time he was with us. The story tapped into the children’s imaginations and many created their own work in the continuous provision areas. They created models, wrote letters to him, told each other stories about what they knew and so on.  The children truly suspended their disbelief and believed the Iron Man existed and responded creatively to him in every way. Parents became involved and left email messages at home from him. When the Iron Man left his final message, there were tears! A special moment in teaching. 

Attitudes and attainment after the project

We have never experienced children come alive quite so sudden. All children involved seemed to have a great time and continued to write /talk about him through the remainder of the year. Staff also thoroughly enjoyed the project.

Children were definitely more confident with the set writing activities because they had developed ideas which they could all talk about and therefore found it easier to write about with or without guidance. They certainly behaved more as writers. 

The project really appealed to the boys and by the end of the year the children had made significant progress with their writing. A high number of boys achieved higher than average in their writing by the end of the year and progress was achieved by all.

Legacy

We would like to extend the project out to the Foundation stage and Year 2 and have an Everybody Writes focus each year to celebrate the importance of creativity in writing. We also have a model of the Iron Man on our gate. I think what the project highlighted was that as teachers you have to take risks and listen to what your children are interested in. If you can teach the necessary skills through a more creative curriculum you are going to have a more captivated audience and motivated learners. Although this was a specific project, I would like to think that this has informed future planning.

We did intend to set up the Iron Man’s messages on the website in response to parent interest. I think if we did the project again we could put more information on the E-learning platform that has just been installed in school and involve parents even more.   

The effect of the project really took us by surprise. The interest and enthusiasm by all children made us proud as teachers to be part of the project. Although this was a key stage 1 project it could easily be adapted to any age group which would be good for a primary school to tackle as a whole. The very dark elements of the text could produce some really exciting work from older children.

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