Creative writing course

[Tigermama72]

I live in Chelmsford and my DS (who is going to be in Yr5 from next week) is sitting for the 11+ in 2017, for 2018 entry. I have been practising the Bond and Schofield & Sims practice books for both English and Maths. Also considering group tuition and mocks. He is good at Maths and is fairly confident, however he is weak at Creative Writing. Therefore I was thinking of either a Creative Writing course in Chelmsford or a 121 Creative Writing tutor. Can anyone PM me any recommendations of any such courses (ongoing currently) or tutors please? Much appreciated. Thanks.

[Two-at-once]

Hi Tigermama72, the tutor we used didn't do any creative writing so we looked after this area ourselves. We used the 'Descriptosaurus' book for inspiration on good words and phrases and set our own writing tasks based on the csse format.

[ToadMum]

Does your primary school not do 'write instructions for / put these instructions in order ...' type exercises? Our did,from about year 1 / 2 onwards. If they do / did and you still have your DS's old schoolbooks, you could perhaps revisit those topics (with the 'expectations' re vocabulary, grammar etc upgraded)?

[Tigermama72]

Thank you Two at Once and Toadmum. DS does a creative writing after school club but TBH don't know if that is good enough, doubt the standard is anything close to the CSSE/CEM exams.

[SlighlyStressedMum]

They don't have to write much. We made up our own to practice. Instructuonal is easy, describe how to make a cheese sandwich, describe your route to school etc. For the other one write a description of your classroom, your favourite person, the view from your window etc.
We made sure ds remembered that in the description particularly it didn't matter if it was true, the markers don't know what the view from your window actually is! We focused on getting lots of descriptive words in, some similies and metaphor, alliteration maybe. Not repeating yourself and using words that were vivid and interesting. And make sure grammar and punctuation and spelling were correct.

[Tigermama72]

Thanks Sligjtly Stressed Mum. How often did you practise creative writing? e.g Every day/every week? I guess in some ways that would depend on the individual child. TBH I am just stressing right now on which group tuition to pick. Such a tough decision! If anyone can help with some advice on this please PM me!! Thanks.

[SlighlyStressedMum]

HI. He did group tuition, one hour a week, throughout year 5. I didn't do anything else with him other than read (Treasure Island, David Copperfield, Carrie's War etc) until the summer holidays before the test. Then we worked through some past papers together, he did some other similar free papers I had found on the internet, and we practised creative writing. We weren't doing that much even then, probably a couple of hours a week with me too in the last month, possibly slightly more in the last week of the hols but certainly not every day.
Obviously every child is different, my son is a good all rounder so for us it was mainly about familiarisation with the exam, just covering the stuff he wouldn't do in his (state) primary. Don't stress x