National Writing Day

Last week we celebrated National Writing Day on Wednesday 19^th June! The annual celebration is designed to encourage and inspire people of all ages to explore the world of creative writing. The message is simple: everyone has a story to tell.

National Writing Day is led by First Story, a literacy charity dedicated to changing lives through writing. The charity encourages young people of all ages to write their own story or attend a writing event in their community. Every year, around the end of June, young writers from across the country share their stories and ideas online and challenge themselves to think more creatively.

This year, schools were able to get involved with the celebrations by hosting a local writer or workshop, providing a platform for young writers to share their work, or delivering dedicated creative writing lessons.

Here at Junior Jam, we are passionate about giving children the opportunity to tell their own stories and have been introducing KS1 classes to storyboarding and ‘screenwriting’ their own short films over the course of the summer term.

As part of our iFilm workshops, younger age groups start to learn about the building blocks of the story; the setting, plot, and characters, and start to combine the elements to create their own short narratives. This past week, pupils were focused on story arcs, and learning more about how to create a story around a theme. We learned about the three ‘acts’ in a short film: the beginning, middle and end. The classes were then able to animate their stories and see their vision come to life.

In the spirit of celebrating storytelling, here are some story examples. We had a romance about two dragons, an arctic explorer who was stranded on an iceberg and befriended a penguin and a fairy at school who had to use her magical powers to do her times tables!

This week, we are looking back and appreciating all of the incredible stories that were shared on National Writing Day – and looking forward to the next one!