Hello Planny-parent! Time to get plannish! We know planning stories in exams has a number of advantages:

1. It makes sure your child is answering the question with every sentence.
2. The right plan (short) will save time and help your child write more within the exam time.
3. A fully answered story will attract the most marks for the flow/cohesion part of marking.
4. It stops your child worrying about finding the perfect story to write. There is no one correct story – think up one and go. You are marked for the writing, not just the idea.
5. It helps your child manage time. They can attack paragraphs with a 5 minute rule for each paragraph far easier once they know what each paragraph will roughly be about.

How can you help your child plan better? By giving them times when they just practise imagining and writing plans, separate from actually writing the story. Focus on having fun with the planning. You can frame it like a fun factory or bakery, where their job is just to generate and churn out four or five plans for a prompt.

HAPPY TIP: Be generous with time first if needed. 15 minutes per plan, if you are talking it through together and playing with options. Then reduce the time a minute at a time, until we get to the optimal time of around 3 minutes a plan, for a full 40-60 min story.

Look at the gorgeous picture above (and below) of Heather Bridge, from a photograph I bought on holiday in a fantastic Art cafe, The Gallery, in Laurieston, Dumfries and Galloway.

Have your child invent three possible plans for a story inspired by or using this wonderful bridge. Planning something, then letting it go and starting again, is both a strange and wonderful experience. It’s interesting how your child may become attached to the story plan and not want to forget about it. Reassure them that no plan is wasted – they can choose the final plan (or choose more than one plan) to write the story with. This exercise is about trusting your own creative imagination, it’s about your child learning that their imagination can be trusted and also grows the more they practise this skill. It’s about admitting that planning is a skill that we can develop with deliberate practice.

To help, here are three short plans I came up with in a real lesson for the picture of the bridge. Here is the stunning Heather Bridge once more:

Plan 1: Adventure/friendship/funny

Plan 2: Fairytale/legend

• Lonely girl visits the bridge daily – no heather – to sit and gather stones and throw them.
• One day she arrives and heather has grown over it. No way through, or so she thinks. Sees another girl at the other end of the bridge. Tries to go over, but heather seems to stop her. The other girl tries the same, with same results.
• They figure out if they meet in the middle, set off at the same time, they can cross onto the bridge. A magical friendship bridge.
• A trap. Beneath is a lonely troll who lives off friendship and love – she has none of her own. Causes a flood and they fall into the water and are swept.
• Friendship is too strong for the troll to swallow because both girls were lonely and really needed this friendship. The troll starts to feel pity and sorrow, rebuilds the bridge, but knows whatever she eats turns to stone, so puts their statues on the bridge as a reminder.
• From this day, it is the most beautiful, famous bridge in the world, and people come from all over to celebrate their friendships. Sometimes, in the water, they hear the sound of the two friends laughing, still together. The troll did not die, but grows smaller and smaller from refusing to eat friends ever again. But, there is a legend that says if two friends go on the bridge who are not friends, the troll will grow larger and devour them. Lesson: be a real friend or the troll will eat you.

Plan 3: Portal Story

• On one side of the bridge, all is well. A kind world, no one argues, no one wants for anything, cleanness and fresh air, etc. But the world is bordered by bridges that are forbidden to cross, all closed up and alarmed.
• Szymon discovers Heather Bridge, curiosity grows, why can’t they cross? Finds he can cross it easily.
• Another world on the other side – winter, smelly, shouts and sobs, things broken. Meets Rag, a child living on this side. They both are confused by each other. Tell of each other’s words. Discover that the kind perfect world only exists because bad energy is sent here to the outside. The Kind world creates this cruel world, there is no scope to change, no power.
• They become friends and decide to form a pact to make a fairer world. Boy writes about Cruelland and tells everyone at home. He is put into jail for spreading lies. (he didn’t know there were prisons.)
• Another person helps him escape, knows about the place too. He has invented a portal opener to open the bridges and allow Cruel Land people to escape and come back to be helped by Kindland. He and the boy open the bridges, has arranged for medical/social help for the incomers. Rag and Szymon first to cross bridge – a new opportunity to create a genuine Kindland for all.

Over to you. If your child uses plans for the above picture, please email me them at leemottram@1plushappy.com. I’d love to read them, and will post a few up here to share.

In the meantime, if you think your child would enjoy or benefit from creative writing lessons from a teacher who absolutely loves writing, please do reach out to me. With the 11plus exams nearly over for this year, I’ll be taking on four new online students. I’m currently teaching Y4, Y5, Y8, Y10 and Y11 students, preparing for both the 11plus and GCSE English Language exams, from Halifax to London to Kent. Please email leemottram@11plushappy.com.

Happy Writing!

Lee, London