St Mary’s C of E Primary School Burnham on Crouch Talk 5 Writing 15th June 2010

Why Talk 5? Traditionally very strong English results in the school. Gradually noticed a decline. Increase in Additional Needs throughout the school. More children with poor speaking and listening skills. This seemed to be affecting writing in particular.

Key Elements Book-talk Writer-talk Storytelling and story-making Word and language games Role-play and drama Talk 5 encompasses many elements that together create a platform to support and move writers on. Obviously we can’t go through everything today we’ll concentrate where we focused as a school. The storytelling and story-making – emphasis was writing. (Quite a bit on Primary Framework; Literacy, Talk for writing – good videos and support materials.) Understand the response you as a writer wish to elicit in the reader and how you can achieve this. xt Reading as a writer – Big patterns and themes of a text and ths story idea. Building blocks, characters, drawing a conclusion. Framework of a whole story – never just a blank page. Helpful for some chn.

Starting out Introduced Talk 5 with Literacy SL in Yr 4 and also teacher new to Yr 6. Briefly introduced to all staff Parents were made aware of the approach Identified 6 focus pupils in Yr 4 and Yr 6 who were not on track to make expected progress However the approach was intended to benefit all pupils Y4 and Y6 started work on 2 traditional tales. Simple stories with lots of repetition The children loved it and the teachers were immediately captivated.

Getting everyone hooked! Full launch with whole staff early in spring term. Literacy consultant modelling the approach was very helpful. Staff wanted to see how it was done. Prove it! Staff questions about how it fitted in with everything else. Initial hesitation, but staff were very quickly hooked!

Storytelling 3 steps Imitation Innovation Invention Bumper Book of Storytelling KS1 and KS 2 by Pie Corbett Mention Bumper book of Storytelling here. Storytelling approach – Orally, by rote. Imitation – retell & create a bank of tales by heart, embedded into their linguistic competence Innovation – ability to adapt a known story in order to create a new story Invention – the ability to draw upon the full range of stories and one’s life to create something new

Class 4 - The Magic Paintbrush Learning a story (video) Create a story map Rewrite the original Create own story map Write own version Show story and word card. Yr 2 simple story – started Show example story maps. T’s and from Yr 4 & 6. Impact: overall good. Difference to my focus group, boys. With writing, getting started!!! Confidence to begin, I can tell a story and I can write a story. Response to storytelling – chn very keen. Doing in lunchtimes and break times, changing themselves (innovation aspect) Chn writing stories at home A group went to demo to Yr 3. A writing refuser in my class wrote a complete story without needing reminders to stay on task or finish.

Developing the process Once hooked there was great enthusiasm from staff and children. Staff meetings used to gather ideas and suggestions. Class assemblies used to share the process with parents/carers. Displays around the school promoted the approach.

Future Agreed to use storytelling approach at least once a year. National storytelling week February 2011 will be a focus for the whole school. ‘St Mary’s Dragon’ to be used as a stimulus for different writing styles throughout the school. Yr 6 children to create a prompt sheet of the actions for all classes. Increase in role play and drama to be focus of schools literacy development. Refining group reading to incorporate more ’book talk.’ Wait for 2010 SAT’s results!