Teach Primary Issue 18.5

typically less likely to engage in writing for pleasure, this significant drop in an age group that has consistently reported higher writing enjoyment rates in the past should be cause for concern. Our research found that inspiring writing opportunities in school can boost children’s writing enjoyment. Crucially, more children who write in their free time had participated in creative writing groups, entered writing competitions, met authors and attended book events. What next? The National Literacy Trust’s school resources ( tinyurl.com/tp-LT-primary ) are filled with ideas, prompts and activities you can use in the classroom to inspire pupils’ writing. For example: • Provide a free writing prompt every morning to inspire a five-minute session for 20 days. On day 21, ask pupils to compose and decorate a free piece titled ‘21 days’ using material from their free writing. • Whether it’s in the school playground or on a trip to the local park, use our Writing from Nature pack ( tinyurl.com/tp-LT-nature ) to look to the natural world as a source of inspiration. • Get pupils to write original poems about their thoughts on attitudes towards young people in today’s society and have them perform their work in a poetry slam. Download our Write On poetry slam resources ( tinyurl.com/tp-LT-slam ) . As our research findings continue to highlight a worrying downward trend across phases, it’s clear we are in an ever-evolving writing for enjoyment crisis that shows no sign of recovery. Action must be taken, with considered policy changes aimed at reconnecting children and young people with the creative elements that transform writing into a personal and pleasurable practice. Financial and intellectual investment is also needed to create safe pedagogical spaces for low-stakes opportunities that are not simply about learning how to be good at writing. We must empower pupils to explore how writing works for them and to experiment with meaning, style, rhythm and movement to discover their individual writing voice. We can’t afford to ignore this crisis and for children to miss out on the positives that writing for enjoyment pedagogies bring. TP Dr Francesca Bonafede is the Programme Manager for Young Writers at the National Literacy Trust. Young Writers is an evidence-based writing for enjoyment programme. Dr Francesca Bonafede VO I C E S A t the National Literacy Trust our research, and the school programmes we run, consistently show that children and young people who write for enjoyment benefit from the many opportunities this practice brings. These include caring for their mental wellbeing, cultivating their creativity, processing struggles, making sense of the world and participating actively in civic life. Previous research indicates that pupils who enjoy writing very much are seven times more likely to write above the level expected for their age compared with those who don’t enjoy writing at all. Writing now This year, we recorded the lowest ever level of writing enjoyment in 14 years of studies, with a staggering seven in ten children and young people aged eight to 18 reporting that they don’t enjoy writing in their free time ( tinyurl.com/ tp-2024writing ). Meanwhile, 29 per cent of 11-year-olds in England left primary school in 2023 unable to write at the expected level. This figure rose to 43 per cent among children who receive free school meals (FSM). Perhaps counterintuitively, every year for the past 14 years more pupils who receive free school meals have told us they enjoy writing in their free time than their non-FSM peers. This trend has remained steady in the face of three recessions, a global pandemic and the unprecedented cost-of-living crisis that profoundly impacted families and exacerbated pressures on schools. Yet the opposite is true of reading for pleasure, indicating that investment is needed to explore how writing for pleasure pedagogies could create a gateway into reading for pleasure for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Enjoyment of writing both in free time and in school are typically highest in primary school settings, with younger pupils being the most enthusiastic. However, during the transition from lower to upper KS2, rates of writing enjoyment drop significantly, continuing to decrease exponentially as pupils progress through their schooling. This year, rates declined ahead of time, with the drop in writing enjoyment most pronounced for boys aged five to eight. Even though boys are www.teachwire.net | 29 Enjoyment in writing has hit a 14-year low – something needs to be done literacytrust.org.uk/programmes/young-writers Why children’s writing is now at crisis point