Building a writing for pleasure culture at Highover JMI School and Nursery

‘Do you think you’re good at writing?’

Some other examples of questions we asked the children were:

• What goes through your head when your teacher says, "Now we are going to do some writing?"
• What do you like about writing?
• Do you write much at home?
• Do you know why you are writing the things you do at school?
• In class, do you get to make choices about what you write about?
• Do you know how to improve your writing?
• Think about the last piece of writing you have done in school. What star rating would you give it?

Crucially, we asked the children for feedback on how we could improve writing at Highover. For example, we asked, ‘Do you have any ideas for how we could make writing at Highover better?’ Examples of the children’s responses included:

‘I think that English could be improved by giving us opportunities where we can pick what to write about/free writing.’

‘Doing writing for fun in your own different book and if you had an idea in the week, you could write it all down before you go home.’

‘Let children write whatever comes out of their head onto a piece of paper.’

As you can see from the pie charts above, older pupils were enjoying writing less than younger pupils and children’s suggestions reflected that they wanted more freedom with their writing. We felt a responsibility to give our pupils the chance to develop a genuine love of writing. To do this, we created opportunities for them to write freely outside of English lessons, allowing them to explore topics of their own choosing. We hoped this freedom would help them associate writing with joy, pride, and self-motivation.

We introduced ‘writing for pleasure journals’ for all our pupils to encourage a sense of creative freedom, allowing them to write without the immediate focus on specific learning outcomes or the pressure of perfect punctuation, spelling, and grammar - while still valuing these skills as part of their broader development. Some children choose to write in response to a given prompt. The prompts may, for example, be an image, a piece of music, an object or a poem and they may lead to pupils choosing to write, for example, a poem, a description, a recipe, a diary entry, a news story, an interview or a letter.

If we want our children to truly see themselves as writers, who make their own choices, and who are confident to write at length in a range of genres, we need to give them opportunities to write for their own pleasure, in their own book – and in the knowledge that it will only be shared if they wish to share it.

Our ‘writing for pleasure’ sessions complement the philosophy of the ESSENTIALWRITING curriculum perfectly. Within English lessons and writing for pleasure sessions, children are learning all of the skills they need to write effectively and then combine these with a genuine desire to write authentically. One teacher thoughtfully reflected on the writing for pleasure journalling sessions:

“Children really love writing for pleasure. They like being able to write about the stimulus but many also write their own stories so don't use the stimulus. In each session, they can either start something new or pick up from where they were last time.”

Our key principles at Highover for developing a writing for pleasure culture:

• Child-centred: regardless of the stimulus; the writing children create is ultimately up to them.
• Ownership and agency: pupils are given ownership over their writing projects, allowing them to make choices about their content, genre, and writing process. Each child should have a dedicated writing journal to use for these sessions.
• Creative freedom: writing sessions promote creativity, exploration, and the freedom to experiment with ideas and styles. This writing is not checked or ‘marked’ in the same way it would be in an English lesson, but children can choose to share it with others if they wish to.
• Engagement through collaboration: children are motivated by opportunities to share, discuss, and work together on writing projects.
• Teachers as writers: teachers participate alongside pupils, modelling the writing process and demonstrating how writing can be enjoyable.
• Building confidence: giving children time, space, and support to develop their writing skills, fostering a positive attitude towards writing.
• Writing community: creating a classroom culture where writing is celebrated, shared, and enjoyed by all

We have found that many of the pupils, who previously didn’t enjoy writing, are now developing a sense of enjoyment of writing:

‘I like it because in writing for pleasure sessions you can write about anything you want and this gives more freedom.’

‘It gives me ideas about writing stories at home. I love it because it's super duper fun!’

‘I now like writing because it is fun, and you can enjoy it. Sometimes we even do writing for pleasure and that is SO fun!’

‘You can write in any way you like. For example, you can write a song, a poem or a story’

‘It makes me feel relaxed.’

In primary schools, our curriculum is so full, it often feels as if there isn’t enough time for anything outside of our tight timetables for things such as writing for fun. This is where we need to be brave enough to give our pupils what they want and need. Ultimately, it can support them to be empowered, confident and keen writers for life.