Year 5 Virtual Creative Writing Workshops with Author Emma Beswetherick
Year 5 enjoyed the opportunity to immerse themselves in some fabulous virtual creative writing workshops with Emma Beswetherick, author of the Wishing Star series of books. Emma has adapted the original workshop that had been scheduled in school for a series of 'virtual' live workshops. We are looking forward to continuing working with Emma over the coming weeks to hone the creative writing skills of our Year 5 pupils.
We would like to thank Emma for this incredible initiative, our pupils have thoroughly enjoyed the workshops and we look forward to sharing some of their super stories with you.
Emma has written this lovely summary of her experience with our pupils:
The start to the summer term has been unusual for all of us, but one positive for me has been the time I've spent with Year 5 through the interactive classroom of Zoom. My first children's book, The Wishing Star, has recently been published, and the spring term was supposed to conclude with me coming into school to run a creative writing activity with the Junior school. As with everything else planned for the final few weeks, however, the trip was cancelled, but thanks to the brilliance of technology and the enthusiasm and support of the teachers, we've been able to kick-start the new term running the activity remotely.
On the first Wednesday back after Easter, Year 5 came together with Miss Edwards to hear me read an extract from The Wishing Star. This was followed by a group lesson on how to plan your own adventure story. The Wishing Star is the start of a four-book children's series, the running theme throughout that children have the power to save the world. In book one the children have a space adventure and learn the importance of tidying up our planet, the second book takes them to the North Pole where they learn about climate change, the third takes them on a magical adventure into an ocean filled with plastic and the fourth takes them deep into an enchanted forest where they learn about deforestation.
The task set for Year 5 was to work in small groups to plan their own adventures with a powerful message. Each group spent a week planning their stories - where their adventure would take them, how they would get there, what would happen on their adventure, what they would learn and what message they would bring home - and then last Tuesday they came back together on another Zoom to present their stories to the class.
I was hugely impressed by the stories and the way the children had worked together. The plans they presented were unique, creative and engaging and really reflected the personalities of the children. I'm incredibly excited by the next part of the task, where the children will be turning their plans into actual adventure stories. We'll be coming together again using Zoom to read the stories together, which will be a treat for us all and I know they're all going to have extremely powerful messages for us to take home.
Thanks to Miss Edwards and Mr Hill for making this happen, and to all the children for their hard work, enthusiasm and creativity. I think Radnor House definitely has a few budding authors in its midst!