A New Direction

This programme was fully funded by A New Direction, who, as part of their Primary Arts Touring programme, were sending all kinds of artists into 100 primary schools across London in total.

As any teacher knows, all schools are different and so every visit ran a little differently, with a different combination of our wonderful tutors: poets Laurie Bolger, Shagufta Iqbal, Zohab Zee Khan, Kat François, BREIS; and novelists Abiola Bello, Michael Mann, Alex Falase-Koya, Rachel Seiffert.

Leading up to the visit 

For each visit, we spoke with lead teachers in advance to make sure we were organising a day tailored to their pupils’ interests and abilities. 

Each school also had a free twilight CPD session led by one of our tutors, who demonstrated writing activities they used in the classroom. They discussed strategies to inspire all pupils to write, to stretch more advanced writers, and to encourage less confident writers to trust themselves. Even after a long day at school, the tutors had teachers laughing and being creative – one participant said ‘I was so tired after school but this actually made me feel energised’. Teachers who normally shied away from poetry were writing some of the best work, and arguing passionately for edits to group poems. As one participant put it: ‘excellent CPD. Well-paced, interactive, and thought-provoking & great examples and ideas throughout. Was totally inspired and boosted confidence in teaching poetry.’

The day itself 

At every school, we brought in at least 2 tutors, usually working in different genres – a poet and a novelist, say. They would each work with a class from Year 3-6 for 60-90 minutes, and then swap, so that each class saw 2 writers. 

In some schools, we brought in up to 4 writers to work with 4 classes. 

Writers brought lots of exciting ideas to the classes, from creating edible bedrooms and superhero stories to crafting entire murder mysteries, from writing poems about their own brilliance to learning to rap.

Then, after lunch, all the classes involved came together in the school hall to share. Sharing at the end of a writing course is a time-honoured Arvon tradition, and children at every school were eager to proudly read their work to their peers.  

We also heard special readings from the visiting tutors, and there was sometimes a chance for a Q&A. Highlights included Zohab’s didgeridoo and BREIS’ sing-along raps! 

Impact 

Every pupil in every class wrote something new as a result of these workshops, and got the chance to meet real professional writers. 

We asked the pupils to tell us what they found out today. Here are just some of the answers: 

• that writing can be fun if you use your imagination and are free with what you do! 
• that poems and stories are way more interesting than I thought, especially the writing 
• That anyone can be an author or a poet if you use your imagination. 
• I found out that when you are writing poems it doesn’t have to rhyme and don’t have to worry about anything! 
• how to write an excellent murder mystery story, write poems and step into the writing world. 
• That sharing my ideas helped other children.  
• That no one’s too young to write 
• I’m really proud. As well as that I HATE ENGLISH but I liked today. 

Teachers said: 

• Children developed their vocabulary through a use of techniques taught, building confidence, oracy, presentation skills, teamwork, being able to build ideas, meeting an author in person. 
• Children had the opportunity to write creatively and to them it didn’t feel like ‘work’ or ‘learning’. 
• Our children have never explicitly been taught performance skills before so this was highly valuable to us. The children also rarely have the chance to ‘free write’ or write about topics personal to them, so it was a great means of developing their self-expression. I also think that our writing is very serious, whereas there was a real focus on humour in writing. 
• Our children being almost 100% EAL was able to connect culturally as well feel exhilarated by meeting actual writers. 

Arvon is currently developing its one-day offer for schools, bringing professional writers into schools and inviting school groups to visit our houses in Shropshire, West Yorkshire and Devon for a day of writing workshops. This can be a paid-for service, or sometimes we have funding to support such days. If you’d like to enquire about a day visit, email learning@arvon.org.