Creative Writing is critical in developing communication skills. It also promotes a range of other skills that are statutory at Key Stage 3. For more information about Skills Progression read Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities Progression Maps at Key Stage 3: English.

The activities and approaches adopted throughout this resource support the development of thinking skills and personal capabilities. As teachers, we need to be clear about the skills we are trying to help our pupils to develop. We can then find approaches that will help pupils to think their way to that skill, developing key personal capabilities on the way.

We can develop our pupils’ independence and resilience by giving them opportunities to work on their own, to make mistakes and try again. You can encourage creativity by giving your pupils time to try to solve problems, fail, analyse why they failed and then attempt a new approach.

While your pupils are developing their independence and resilience, by analysing what’s going wrong in each case, they need structured activities to guide them towards their own unique approaches to succeeding, using activities and approaches similar to those in this resource.

All learner-centred teaching naturally supports the statutory skills and develop the personal capabilities your pupils need for later life and the world of work.