Rebecca Griffiths, an Early Years teacher at a Norfolk primary school, writes about belonging to an NWP writing group and the impact it has had in her classroom.
Attending the NWP Writing Teachers group at the University of East Anglia for the last 8 years has provided me with a network of educators who share a passion for writing. The group consists of EYFS practitioners to A level teachers, and everyone in between. The groups change monthly, with some attending regularly and some coming when they can free themselves from school life. This provides an ever changing dynamic; supportive yet challenging, always inspiring.
The group has taught me so much about the way children write throughout their journey in education. It enabled me to see beyond Early Years. NWP has provided many opportunities and supported my research for my MA Advanced Educational Practice. Each month we are excited to take the new ideas from the group back into school and to explore them in our own way. It is always refreshing to see how the same writing prompt can be explored across all age groups, and challenging to think about how you will make it work for your own class. This stimulates creative thinking, teaching and writing! We often overlook the feelings of young writers, we can easily forget the terror a blank page can ignite! When writing ourselves, we reconnect with the pressure, frustration and pleasure writing can bring. Therefore connecting us to our students and their barriers and successes as developing writers.
I write with my class daily and in Early Years, this writing takes many forms. Too often the monotonous struggle toward ‘becoming a writer’ overshadows the enjoyable process of developing emerging writing skills creatively.
As a practitioner, I find myself immersed in the world of progress with little time to observe the multi modal forms of writing which flourish in the classroom. However, it is apparent that the curriculum constraints cannot stop the creative minds of our youngest writers.
Through drama, role play, drawing and making marks, writing takes it form in ways that are purposeful to the individual child. It is through these experiences that I most enjoy writing collaboratively with children; finding and utilising writing opportunities through play. The classroom provides a unique research environment, a place to explore new ideas and experiment with ideas based upon current research. It is also a place to celebrate the accomplishments of all writers! This is where I write most, and this is where I love to write.
Membership of an NWP group has shaped me as a writer and a teacher of writing. I am honoured to be part of it.
The future of the NWP belongs to you, the teachers of writing, the lovers of writing! Are you interested in writing CPD? A writing retreat? Or joining or starting a Writing Teachers group? You are in the right place.