Improve your children’s writing with Writing Skool!

Our good friend and children’s author, Richard Vobes, is creating a series of videos aimed at helping children to improve their writing. The videos are all posted on Youtube and can be found as part of a growing playlist.

The first video in this series gives a range of ideas to help children improve their writing:

Richard’s second video helps children to understand what a story is and what it might be about:

In the third video, Richard explains how children can define and describe characters in their writing:

These videos could be used in a number of ways in the classroom:

• Watch them on a large display and discuss the key points with your class.
• Ask your children to respond to Richard’s questions in the videos and post them together as comments on Youtube.
• Respond to Richard’s ‘homework’ ideas in the videos and use them as the starting point for your own writing.
• Ask your children to summarise the main points and produce a poster that shares them with a different audience.
• Challenge children to come up with their own writing tips.
• Why not use these videos as inspiration for your own ‘Writing Tips’ videos?
• Think of questions that you would like to ask Richard about his own experiences with writing.

Richard has written a number of books, including Splidge the Cragflinger and Escape from Snod Hill. His fantastic voiceovers have also been used on our popular Internet tutorial, Welcome to the Web, and in our Mental Maths and Listening Skills resource packs.

Richard says “Reading and writing takes us into the world of our imagination, where all things are possible. Writing helps us to explore themes and ideas and often conjures answers to questions that puzzle us. As Patron of Reading for a West London school, my role is to encourage children to read and open their minds. Writing does that too.”

If you would like to see more of these videos, subscribe to Richard’s Youtube channel and follow the Writing Skool playlist.