I’m going to start our blog with a quote from a master of words who was able to understand and utilise their immense power:
And now to introduce POW…A modern day superhero to representing the ‘Power of Writing’ who’s mission is to inspire creative literacy teaching and learning in primary schools. I had the pleasure recently of spending a day at Mahatma Gandhi’s residence in Mumbai and was very inspired by the simplicity of his approach to life and the absolute power contained in much of his writing, whether that be short quotes or letters to head of nations as part of his strategy for advocating a free India through non violence. In our technology driven modern communication network how many of us actually have the time to hand write? If it’s not a greetings card most of us type on a keyboard or smartphone and in the process, the speed of the activity may dilute some of the creative thought processes that go into our writing Ghandi’s hand written words in simple bound journals were incredibly powerful and helped me re-connect with the importance of children discovering their creativity, finding joy in the written word and understanding the power of writing.
Shireland Hall Primary School have been developing POW resources for a while now using a range of reward driven stimulus that focus on a ‘can do’ positive child centred approach. There are no longer mistakes in writing only interference and trickery from the ‘Flerbs’. Teachers are testing this new innovative resource within their literacy strategy in both KS1 & KS2 with amazing results. The children are really inspired and engaged by POW and his cloak of many letters and how he conquers the “Flerbs”, those pesky little creatures that can appear as pitiful punctuation or infect writing with grammatical errors!
One slight unexpected drawback to this new superhero’s positive impact is that all the kids want to meet him in person and guess who has been unanimously nominated to don the lycra and bring this character to life….yes it’s me and I do admit I haven’t taken much persuading, apparently he looks a bit like me, which is slightly worrying, but hey it’s for the kids!
If you want to find out more about POW or try it in your school, just let us know.