Do primary school teachers still meke children do this at teh start of a new term

[queenofthemountain]

write about
'what I did in the holidays

Okay, had raw crispy pancakes for breakfast that they tried to cook themselves and picked blackberries from neighbours garden before watching Peppa pig on repeat.

Children are not stupid...they know exactly how a holiday abroad complete with lots of trips to museums, parks, etc compares to nicking fruit from next doors garden (although I can't imagine there will be very many kids in a position to go scrumping nowadays...).

Thing is, it is upsetting for some kids Starlight - there have been examples on this thread already - and so given that there are plenty of other options for literacy tasks there really is no need for this at all.

I'm not stupid either but I never did note at school that someone's trip to France was in competition with my changing my brothers bed sheets all by myself because he'd weed the bed 3 nights ago, or finding a muddy recorder in the gutter.

I always had LOADS to write about and thankfully I never noticed any adult-imposed judgement or comparison.

Having said that I still think it is a shit request and far too open ended. I always struggled with where to start and what to write, as had 6 weeks to pick something from.

Far better to have some direction and context.

I didn't think for a minute your were stupid - but you were certainly lucky that you didn't feel any comparison (not adult imposed - I did not mean that). Other posters on here certainly did however - you can read their accounts upthread.

Given the myriad of other things that a teacher could ask their pupils to write about, I agree with you - it's a shit request.

What I'm getting from this thread is that some people think you must never ask children to write about their own experiences.

In which case you'd be incorrect.

Why not? Surely we learn from our experiences? They are a valid part of our lives and should not be dismissed or ignored.

Not at all SixImpossible we ask children to write about their own experiences all the time but IMVHO asking children to write holiday news is lazy safe & generally boring unless you are the writer's parent.

^

This.

No one is dismissing or ignoring anyone's experience (including the experiences of posters who found this task upsetting) but does that mean that we should focus time to write about every experience or would that time be better spent teaching and learning?

A few years ago I went to visit a little girl in school at the start of term so I asked her about her holidays and she told me some awful things. I'm not sure she would have talked about it if no one had asked her directly. But then I'm not sure she would have written it down or talked about it in front of other children either. I'm not even sure what my point is, except that there definitely are children who will not have a single positive thing to say about their holidays.

One of my most vivid memories of primary is being asked to do this in year 1. I remember insisting we 'didn't do anything' meaning, of course, that we didn't go away. I had a lovely childhood but I remember thinking writing about going to the cinema and visiting family wouldn't be enough, so I made it up. I remember the feeling of satisfaction and freedom this gave me and I probably wrote a lot more and a lot better than I would have if I'd written the truth.

My point is, 1 writing imaginatively about something fairly mundane is actually very hard and needs a fair amount of input and practice. I would give a weeks worth of work to this. 2 children need a bit of freedom with their writing so that the subject matter isn't limiting.

Write what you know is all very well but what if you don't know much? I was a high ability writer btw if that makes any difference.

I've never done 'what I did on holiday' as a writing task. Mainly because it seems like a cop out.

I have done it as a sp&l activity. some children made things up, some just talked about something they enjoyed doing that they didn't get to do most of the time such as sleeping in or staying up late. Most children are desperate to talk about it anyway.

I think if a knew some children would have difficulty with it for whatever reason I would avoid it.