Everybody Writes Day

Friday 24 October is Everybody Writes Day! Schools around the country will be collapsing the curriculum to celebrate creative writing for one day.

Have you ever received a letter from an ant, had a space ship crash land in your playground, or taken some jumbo chalks for a walk? Well these are just some of the great activity ideas being proposed by Booktrust for the first ever Everybody Writes Day on 24th October.

The day is all about exploring writing beyond the classroom and taking it into the playground, communities and even the workplace. Everybody Writes encourages schools to try out new and interesting ways of initiating writing and to offer children a real audience for their writing.

Imagination and variety

Primary schools all over the country have been organising imaginative and varied activities, from using paintings from the National Gallery to stimulate writing, writing a web blog, attending workshops with sports journalists to writing about the history of the school.

Project Manager, Allison Judge, explains: “Everybody Writes Day is about making writing fun and making it relevant; helping children to see that everybody writes: their parents, the dinner ladies, the man who runs the local shop, while the adults in their lives will be reminded that, with a bit of time and a bit of inspiration, we can all enjoy writing every day.”

Everybody Writes is a web-based resource for teachers run in partnership by Booktrust and The National Literacy Trust and funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). More ideas and a downloadable information booklet are available from www.everybodywrites.org.uk