It was a pleasure to meet with Prof. Teresa Cremin again at HFL’s recent September Symposium. Although she is especially well-known for her groundbreaking and tireless research into the huge benefits of reading for pleasure, it has primarily been her work on writing teaching that has impacted me most personally, and profoundly changed my professional life, ever since I first met her 15 years ago. Since that time, children choosing to write in this country has fallen to rock-bottom. The latest National Literacy Trust report has found that fewer than 3 in 10 children and young people enjoy writing in their free time. The percentage of children who write something in their free time on a daily basis has halved over the past 12 months to just 1 in 9 in 2024. We need to ask ourselves why this is the case, and in doing so, turn our attention to what we, as educators, can control: the experiences of writing that children receive in the classroom. I thought it might be a good idea to repurpose this blog (originally shared on the WfP Centre website in 2021) and share it anew, in the hope that it might inspire some thought and encouragement to consider how we can put the enjoyment for writing at the forefront of the agenda in all of our schools - because, as I always say, writing is never just about writing.

First and foremost, if a child doesn’t want to write and/or feels that they aren’t very good at it – that’s often one of the biggest hurdles to their development as a writer. As teachers, it’s our job to listen – and I mean really listen – to our children and, before we do anything else, find out how they feel about writing and about themselves as writers. And in doing so, we need to ask ourselves the same question.

Teachers as writers; children as writers

Between 2009-2010, I had the privilege of working with Teresa Cremin, who was working with a group of teachers in Newham as part of a UKLA ‘Teachers as Writers’ project¹. During our first session, she asked us to create ‘writing rivers’ – thinking about our range of experiences of writing from the earliest point in our lives up to adulthood. In doing so, we were challenged to consider how we felt about that writing and why. I quickly realised that, in contrast to my childhood, I no longer wrote for enjoyment or pleasure. I wrote for purely functional purposes – to send an email or create lists of tasks. No feedback, no creativity, no joy. What message about writing was I giving to my pupils? Well, here I came to the embarrassing realisation that I too was sucking the joy from their writing lives. When I met Teresa, I was teaching in year 5 and in my second year of teaching. At the time, my school used a literacy scheme which followed a formulaic pattern of looking at an extract or passage of text, answering questions about it, teaching an element of grammar or punctuation (out of context) and then asking the children to write in the same genre with the same content or context, using the aforementioned grammar/ punctuation (and often in just a day or two). I was the gatekeeper who decided what they would write about, how and when² – and there was never any choice or discussion about this. At this point I should probably add that I am an English Literature graduate, and I just accepted that this was the way the subject was taught at school. Not once had I really questioned it, but at the same time I knew that the children didn’t really enjoy their English lessons – and I didn’t enjoy teaching them.

In fact, judging from their answers to a writing survey, over half (56%) of my pupils did not feel positively about writing at all. One child (I’ll give him the pseudonym Jason) was refreshingly honest in his responses.

I could feel his “Oh god - do we have to?” in the way he sat in his seat every day; the way he came into the classroom, looking at his feet and barely saying “Hello”. I could feel it from the way he scowled at other children whenever they asked him what book he was reading; the way he rolled his eyes when he was asked to pull in his chair. Jason was described to me on numerous occasions as ‘lazy’ and ‘rude’. Most teachers seemed to have dismissed him as a child who couldn’t be bothered, and by the time he arrived in year 5, Jason was falling far behind his peers. Highly unlikely to get the required level 4 by the time of SATs, his needs were no longer a priority, and he knew it. Looking back at his handwriting, it seems to say that he was trapped by a lack of fluency – unable to join his letters and write freely; he was stuck. He would often spend ages writing the date or a learning objective and barely get around to writing anything else before the lesson ended. His “Oh god - do we have to?” reflected exactly how Jason felt every single day. I admired his honesty hugely, and Jason’s admission has stayed with me ever since. In the fifteen years since then, all too often in the children I have met and taught, these struggles with writing go hand-in-hand with similar struggles in communication, behaviour, self-expression and self-esteem. It makes sense really – if you think you can’t write, does that mean you’ve got nothing to say? And if you’ve got nothing to say, what worth do you have? 

Becoming a writer-teacher

After analysing the children’s feedback from their writing surveys, I decided to implement Teresa’s suggestions with gusto – clearly something had to change and it was going to start with me. We had talked about teachers writing alongside the children, writing the same thing we had asked the children to write. At first, I’ll admit I felt very sceptical – and anxious – about this concept. Surely the children would all be talking and not know what to do if I sat down and wrote alongside them? Surely they’d need me to help them when they were writing? I couldn’t believe what actually happened when I announced that, from now on, I would go on the same writing journey as them. At the time, we were writing our own narratives based on a hazardous journey, such as that of Michael from ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’. I was also going to write an opening to my story. A silent respect followed an initially surprised reaction – they were far more quiet than usual and stayed that way for the rest of the lesson. They occasionally looked up to watch me as I chewed my pen, referred to the thesaurus, asked a child next to me to read a sentence to check it made sense to them. To my surprise, I found out that as long as they knew what resources they had at their disposal, they were quieter, more focused than usual and produced some wonderful writing. As well as doing my own writing, I would spend longer talking to the children, having in-depth conversations with children about how it felt to write, the process of writing and giving advice using tips and tricks that I had been relying on in my own writing process. We talked about how their writing made me feel as I read it, and whether that was their intention or not. I suddenly understood how it felt to feel that same frustration and vulnerability when staring at an empty page and the words don’t come. I would share that vulnerability by talking aloud as I wrote in front of the class – circling words that ‘didn’t feel right’ or underlining parts that felt boring or needed reworking. That day started a process that I have tried to stick to ever since. In my classroom, we all write – we are a community of writers, all working towards a common goal of publishing something we are proud of. 

Putting pupil agency and autonomy on the writing menu

The next step was to focus on the children’s writing process. The time it was taking for Jason to meticulously write the date and LO before getting down to any writing was bothering me. What was the purpose of that anyway? Teresa wanted us to introduce writing ‘journals’ to the children. They could write whatever they wanted to in their journals; it wouldn’t be marked and they could share their writing only if they wanted to. Again, this felt like a risk. There were no rules about the journals, other than if you chose to draw or doodle you had to write about it in some way. I wondered to myself: what if a child didn’t choose to write at all? What if they had nothing to write about?³ As it turned out, as long as I kept the profile of the journals in the highest esteem, and they were given time to generate their ideas and we used them every day, this was never a problem. The excitement about the notion that they didn’t have to write the date, or cross out with a ruler, and they could draw on the front cover and doodle in the margins – in fact wherever they liked – was incredible. Never before had the children been provided with autonomy over their work in this way, or been provided with this level of trust. I also felt a little upset about their reaction – how sad that my pupils were so excited about a doodle and not having to write a date. What had it come to when I kept being asked: “But are you sure, Miss? We don’t have to underline the LO?”; “Won’t I get in trouble if I draw?” and “Can I really use a pen now?” or “Can we really write about what we want?” with a mixture of disbelief, excitement and anxiety.

In case you need any reassurance about the drawing element – the children’s drawings were an essential part of their writing. They provided a counterpart to their ideas and a process with which to visualise what they wanted to say and inform their word choices⁴. We would talk about their drawings and use them to consider impact on audience, the pictures we wanted our reader to see when they read our words. Jason took to his journal like a duck to water. He loved it - so much so, that when it came to ‘sharing time’⁵ he started to jump at the opportunity to share what he had written. I began to see a change in him on the day when he wanted us to read part of a setting description he was writing for a story based on a desert island (our reading of ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ was filtering into his own writing decisions). As he read his work, we all stopped at a phrase he had written and were unanimous in our praise. I still remember it now:

As I stepped into the soft, settling sand…

“Wow”, I said, “Jason – you’re a writer.” His reaction will never leave me. I don’t think I’d seen him smile like that before. Days after that, we could see the other children borrowing his phrase and it cropped up in some of their poetry after discussing alliteration – all referring to ‘Jason’s trick’. Jason began to start offering advice to other children; he wanted another journal to take home with him. He started writing stories with his mum. 

Changing attitudes

After the year (and the ‘teachers as writers’ project) had ended, I asked the children to complete the same survey. I was shocked by the change in their responses. You may remember that 56% of my pupils had felt negatively about writing. This had dropped to 12%, as now 88% of the children had a positive reaction to the thought of writing. Before we started the project, 74% of the class did not write, or rarely wrote, anything at home. This had reduced to 16%, as 84% were now continuing their writing at home or creating their own writing projects⁶. Jason’s responses were some that stood out the most: 

I often wonder now about how Jason is getting on. Does he still write? Does he think he’s a good person? Is he happy? While I was delivering some training about writing for pleasure recently, I started talking about him and cried. He’ll never know what an impact he’s had on me; but his words will stay with me forever. 

How time flies! It feels like only yesterday that Ellen shared her fantastic blog about the power of poetry in the classroom ahead of last year’s National Poetry Day. Packed full of teaching strategies for both the reading and writing of poetry, it also includes lots of recommended poets and text recommendations to help you on your journey to becoming an inspiring teacher of poetry – do check it out!

Engaging with poetry - through reading, writing, listening, and performing – is a valuable way to nurture children's language development, emotional expression, creativity, imagination, and cultural awareness.

“See it and live it. Look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic.” 
Poetry in the Making’ by Ted Hughes

Poetry does indeed possess an enchanting quality. It has the power to inspire even the most reluctant writer, offering a sense of freedom with its limitless nature and lack of strict rules. For a child who feels overwhelmed by writing, poetry can provide a refreshing escape and a powerful outlet for self-expression, too!

Of course, not every child will immediately connect with poetry, and that's perfectly fine. It often takes time for both children and teachers to discover its joy. As a child, I was captivated by poetry from the moment I had the privilege of watching Michael Rosen perform in assembly when I was  around only 6-years old. I eagerly read, wrote, and performed poetry for anyone willing to listen. However, my enthusiasm waned when I first began teaching, as I felt unsure of where to begin.

With a well-planned curriculum, high-quality texts, and a class full of eager learners, I quickly found my footing as a poetry teacher. Since then, there’s been no turning back, and now I burst into spontaneous rhyme at every opportunity...

Narrative tales or rhymes that catch,
Riddles to solve, or raps with an edge,
Limericks, haikus, nonsense, and lists,
Acrostics, shapes where creativity twists.

Ballads that sing, sonnets so fine,
Cinquains with rhythm, each word in line,
No matter the style, no matter the tone,
There's a poem, a poet, a verse for everyone!

... now that is out of my system, we hope this blog inspires you to plant the seed of poetry in your classrooms, allowing it to grow into a flourishing tree, with countless ‘poetrees’ blooming throughout your school.

Where to begin?

National Poetry Day offers a fantastic opportunity to begin showcasing the joy poetry can bring. This year, National Poetry Day will take place on Thursday 3rd October. This year's theme is ‘counting,’ and the Forward Arts Foundation website provides a wealth of resources, poems, and classroom recommendations. It’s an excellent way to kick off the poetry year and spark a lasting interest in poetry among pupils.

To prevent poetry from becoming a ‘one-day-a-year’ event, here are some of our favourite strategies to raise the profile of poetry so children can reap its rewards year-round.

Read and reflect

Layers of meaning require layers of reading. Head back over to Ellen’s blog, The Power of Poetry in the Primary Classroom, which explores why poetry should be read (and re-read) in layers. Learn how this can be incorporated into guided reading lessons and accomplished effectively using a range of easy-to-implement classroom strategies, where any child can contribute – low stakes, high impact, immense joy!

In this useful blog, Poetry in primary schools – how to build an effective curriculum, Alison Dawkins also shares how to plan your own poetry curriculum, including which poems you may wish to choose for your class.

Do your pupils have a chance to choose, read and chat about poetry? Continue reading to learn more…

Immerse

It’s helpful to create an environment that reinforces poetry as something of great value. Our classroom environment should be an extension of our teaching. Keep children enthusiastic about poetry by:

• maintaining an engaging, accessible, and diverse poetry area, featuring a range of poets and poetry books.
• encouraging children to talk about poetry in informal, social settings, making it an authentic part of their interactions and fostering a genuine interest.
• displaying poems—both the children’s and your own—around the school. 
• exploring and sharing best practice! Head over to Open University’s Poetry Archives for examples of effective classroom practice.

Listen

One of the most effective ways to engage children with poetry is by exposing them to the rhythm and diversity of a wide range of poems and poets. Experiencing the flow of different poetic styles helps children to connect more deeply with poetry and the poets themselves. Do your children hear you, as their teacher, read poetry aloud? Do they see your enthusiasm and passion for the subject? Your attitude to teaching poetry can significantly influence how your pupils perceive and engage with it.

In today’s technological age, we have the advantage of accessing poems as they were meant to be heard—read and performed by the poets themselves. With numerous videos and audio clips available online, children can listen to a variety of voices and styles, which can inspire them to create and perform their own poetry. Useful resources include the CLPE, Book Trust’s Poetry Prompts, BBC Teach, Poetry By Heart, and other online platforms featuring poets like Joseph Coelho, Valerie Bloom, Matt Goodfellow, Janet Wong, Grace Nichols, Karl Nova, Nikita Gill and so many more!

Read aloud and perform

“ I think poetry should be alive. You should be able to dance to it.” – Benjamin Zephaniah

Poems are often crafted to be read aloud and dramatised, creating an immersive experience much like music. When children engage with poetry in this way, they don't just hear the words—they feel them. The rhythm of each line, the variations in pitch and tone, and the repetition of rich language help children internalise the poem. This helps children to not only understand the poem but also to derive meaning from it.

So, how can we incorporate this day-to-day? 

• Fit it in whenever you can! One of the best things about poetry is that there are poems perfect for even the briefest moments of the school day. Send your children home with a rhyme to remember or greet them in the morning with something thought-provoking.
   
• Freeze-frame, conscience alley, thought-tracking, performing in role – the list goes on. Whatever the strategy, poetry can be explored and presented effectively through drama and movement. Try incorporating the two across the curriculum or as a standalone lesson for full impact. Patrice Baldwin explains more about how teachers can use drama to connect their pupils with poetry. 
   
• Memorising rhymes and poems offers many benefits, including enhancing memory, language development, and mindfulness (see this article for further insight into the benefits of learning poetry off by heart). The process also fosters a strong emotional connection to language and brings a sense of accomplishment and joy once they master a poem!
   
• Organisations like ‘Poetry by Heart’ often host inspiring competitions, where children choose a poem, learn it by heart, and perform it aloud. You can incorporate this into your routine or by organising a poetry event locally or in school. Give children ample time to practise in a safe and supportive environment before performing to larger audiences.
   
• Poetry Cafés at lunchtime or after-school are a fantastic way to create a relaxed environment, where children can share their poetry and are perfect for those who are building their confidence in performing or for those who simply love poetry. 

Compose (to write or not to write?)

For those who have recently joined our ESSENTIALWRITING journey, you're in for an exciting experience! Our poetry units are carefully designed not just to immerse children in the art of reading poetry but to also provide them with abundant opportunities to write and perform their own pieces. If you aren’t subscribed, you may like to try out this sample poetry plan for Year 5, based on the poetry of Karl Nova.

For some children, particularly those who find the act of writing itself challenging, the prospect of picking up a pencil can feel daunting. Our goal is to inspire such a love for poetry through reading and immersion that even the most reluctant writers will be eager to try their hand at creating their own poems. However, we also recognize the importance of offering non-writing forms of poetry creation, which can serve as a gentle introduction to the world of poetry without the pressure of transcription. Children may wish to try ‘blackout poetry’, ‘cut and stick’ poetry, or use digital tools to create shape poems, photo poems, or even film poems, blending language and poetic devices with visual or digital imagery.

Collaborate

Here are some effective strategies to share poetry and make it a meaningful part of your classroom culture:

• Invite both well-known and emerging poets into school for workshops and presentations
   
• Encourage the sharing of poetry across different year groups
   
• Become a poet-teacher and embody the role of a poet yourself
   
• Michael Rosen’s ‘Long and Short’ strategy: this is a fantastic way to encourage collaboration! Get children gathering words and phrases in small groups. Some children will act as ‘longs’, crafting longer, more detailed phrases, while others are the ‘shorts’, generating short, punchy words related to the topic. This collaborative method helps pupils engage deeply with language and fosters a sense of teamwork. 
   
• PARK (Poetry as a Random Act of Kindness): Before joining the HFL Education team, year 6 pupils in my school wrote short poems filled with positive affirmations and distributed them randomly to others. By the end of the week, every child had either received a poem or written one for someone else, creating a ripple effect of kindness and poetic expression.

Poetry for All

The poetic devices associated with poetry can sometimes deter teachers from sharing them with all children. However, poetry offers a wealth of benefits that make it an invaluable tool in the classroom, including for children with SEND, EAL, or other needs.

Poetry has been shown to enhance children's emotional literacy, vocabulary, foster self-expression, stimulate critical thinking and imagination, and provide rich opportunities for social interaction (see the National Literacy Trust’s Children and Young People’s Engagement with Poetry survey). For all children, poetry can be a gateway to a lifelong love of reading, a deeper appreciation of language, and a newfound confidence in self-expression.

Speaking of inspiring poets and impeccable communicators… why not join us out our ‘Powerful Pedagogy: Say It, Write It, Read It’ conference where we have the honour of welcoming the one and only Valerie Bloom, amongst others!

In March of this year, Ofsted released ‘Telling the story: the English education subject report’, building on the English research review published in 2022. The aim of the report is to share common strengths and areas for development identified in inspections, to support the development of the English curriculum more widely. 

Within each section, the English report explores the following topics:

• curriculum
• pedagogy
• assessment
• school systems
• the impact of the above on what pupils learn

Context

The opening paragraph of the report lays out the vital role that English plays as a gateway to learning across all subject disciplines through the domains of reading, writing and spoken language: 
 

Let’s take a ‘deep dive’ into spoken language…

Within the summary conclusions of the report, the following findings were drawn about the curriculum for spoken language:

Although a generalised statement, it may be worth pausing for thought to consider our own practice and curriculum development for spoken language.

We could ask ourselves:

• Is spoken language considered and planned for in our English curriculum?
• Do we provide rich and meaningful opportunities for pupils to use talk to develop reading and writing?
• How does our curriculum facilitate the progression of pupils’ speaking and listening skills over time?
• Is spoken language used to enhance learning across the curriculum?

And, perhaps most importantly:

• How do we teach the skills of spoken language?

When digging deeper into the practice seen during inspections, the report suggests that schools are not always clear about how to teach the principles of spoken language. Leaders may choose to explore how speaking and listening is currently used in their school and identify any strengths and areas for development when it comes to teaching and facilitating spoken language development. We need to ensure children are being taught the skills they need to develop their spoken language, rather than simply practising them. 

Opportunities for spoken language development

In EYFS, spoken language development is often part of everyday practice as children are still developing their skills of communication, early reading and writing. The use of rhymes, songs and re-telling of familiar stories can underpin much of the English learning which takes place. The English report indicates that where this has been thoughtfully considered, this approach develops children’s understanding, use of vocabulary and language structures.

However, when moving into the primary phase, the report suggests that, often, schools lack an explicit curriculum for developing spoken language. HFL Education's spoken language progression guidance can support leaders in exploring the statutory content for spoken language across domains, and seeing how the statements which span KS1 and KS2 can be covered and developed across the year groups. The document aims to provide an insightful and useful breakdown for teachers as a foundation for supporting pupils’ progress.

Although opportunities for debate, class assemblies and school productions can be commonplace, the report summarises that not all children participate in these activities, and that the principles of spoken language are not always threaded through daily teaching and learning. We need to consider the following question:

• Does our curriculum enable all pupils to access the skills needed to communicate effectively to a range of audiences and for a range of purposes? 

Spoken language and writing

The Teacher Assessment Framework for writing at the end of key stage 2, explicitly references:

The English report concludes that the knowledge required to distinguish the difference between spoken and written language is not always taught. Yet, we are striving to ensure our pupils can translate this skill into their writing – an interesting juxtaposition of these two strands of English. It is important that we value children’s spoken language, while helping them to recognise and use standardised grammar in their written work.

Oral rehearsal is often one of the most effective tools for allowing pupils time to practise their thinking ahead of writing. It allows children to rehearse the required standardised grammatical structures used in writing, which are not always used in spoken language. However, we also need to ensure that pupils are given opportunities to use spoken language, not just as a tool to aid writing, but as a tool for effective communication more widely. 

Vocabulary development

The Oxford Language Report 2023-2024, based on surveys with over 800 teachers, parents and carers in the UK, reported that an average of 4 out of 10 pupils have fallen behind in their vocabulary development to the extent that it impacts on their learning. 

Language-rich learning environments which develop the skills needed to communicate proficiently, and develop spoken language to aid comprehension and composition, could help to address this deficit. A dialogic approach to teaching can weave spoken language into teaching across the curriculum, with positive impact.  The following report from the Education Endowment Foundation, reviews the impact of Robin Alexander’s dialogic teaching and the impact of having this fully embedded in the classroom: Dialogic Teaching.

Leaders may like to consider:

• Are children given the opportunities to meaningfully engage with new vocabulary to the point where it can be used?
• Are teachers using a dialogic approach to teaching to enhance engagement and understanding?

A case study

As part of the report, Ofsted has included case studies describing the best practice observed during inspections. One of these case studies outlines how a school developed the teaching of spoken language:

• Leaders had mapped out the progress children would make in spoken language, beginning in Reception
• Teachers exemplified the spoken responses expected from pupils, including taught vocabulary and models for summarising views
• Pupils were taught active participation strategies such as facing the audience and the use of intonation, expression and volume
• Teachers modelled social aspects of spoken language using examples from different forms of speech
• Consideration was given to the most suitable form and register appropriate to a given audience
• Pupils benefited from ample opportunities to practise and apply knowledge across a range of contexts and purposes

Recommendations

The report concludes with the following recommendations for spoken language development: 

As teachers, we know the value of effective speaking and listening within the classroom, however we do not always have a structured approach to our speaking and listening curriculum. Mapping out the skills required at each stage, and considering how these will progress over time, helps teachers understand the requirements of the (quite sparse) spoken language national curriculum at each stage, and will provide the milestones to help children make progress in this vital area. It is important that children not only learn how to talk (and listen) successfully, but also that they learn through opportunities to talk, which develop their thinking. We should consider when and how a dialogic approach to teaching can be harnessed for best impact on pupils’ learning.

Final thoughts

At this time of year, many leaders will be considering action plans in readiness for September. Digesting the recommendations from the English subject report may support in considering next steps for the development of spoken language within your setting. Perhaps consider the questions posed in this blog to support reflections about the curriculum currently in place for spoken language. The report may not give all the answers to these questions but may well provide some food for thought. 

If you are looking to develop your spoken language curriculum, and find ways to use speaking and listening to support thinking and learning more widely, join us in January for our CPD session Oracy: Learning Through Talk. 

Keep an eye out for future blogs from HFL Education to support the teaching of oracy and spoken language. You may want to take a read of this fabulous blog published earlier this academic year: Why teach oracy?

We would love for you to join in the conversation and showcase the creative and innovative ways you promote speaking and listening in your classrooms – why not share some ideas or photos on our free to access subject leader platform? It’s an online community of fellow practitioners. Here you will also find book recommendations, training opportunities as well as subject leader support. 

References:

Oxford University Press - Word Gap - Oxford Language Report 
Research review series: English 
Teacher assessment frameworks at the end of key stage 2 
Telling the story: the English education subject report 
Principles behind Ofsted’s research reviews and subject reports 
Robin Alexander: Dialogic Teaching
 

Resources:

Spoken language progression (years 1-6)
Oracy: Learning Through Talk