Louise Dempsy PLD

I am feeling very inspired to shake things up after listing to Louise Dempsey this afternoon. Having spent some time reflecting on my writing programme I have realised that although the children are producing great quality recounts the writing has become very stale. I think it is easy when you get to the middle of the term and busy to stick with the same old same old routine and neglect to include those ‘fun’ aspects of writing. Something I feel I do well in my writing programme is trying to make writing tasks authentic whenever possible. Louise emphasised this as particularly important for lower achievers as if they don’t see the point in writing they will be even more reluctant to write. Things I want to change soon about my writing programme is to reduce the amount of ‘planning’ the children do as Louise really reinforced this in order to up the fun factor of writing. Another immediate change I am going to make is to introduce a quick write style activity once a week into my writing programme to increase interaction during writing and introduce the children to different ways of writing. Longer term initiatives I want to bring into my programme is the introduction of super sentences to build on the children’s vocabulary.