Success stories
St. Martins CE Primary School: 'Ready to Rumble' with Writing
11 Mar 2013
St. Martin’s CE Primary School is located in Tipton in the West Midlands. A high percentage of their pupils have English as an additional language and are generally below the national average in literacy prior to joining the school. The school works extremely hard to bring students’ literacy standards up and by the time they depart the school at age 11, the majority of pupils are above the national average for writing.
St. Martin’s is always on the look out for activities and initiatives to encourage pupils to write and develop a love of writing. When they came across Road to WrestleMania Kiki Singer, a leader for writing across the school, knew that the topic and competition tasks would engage pupils and in particular boys, a group that they are focusing on this year with regards to raising standards. Kiki explains…
“I ran the competition by collapsing the timetable for Years 5 and 6 for an Upper Key Stage 2 writing day. I booked out the school hall and turned it into a wrestling arena, utilising the Road to WrestleMania resources including posters, log books, WWE wrestler bios, and video from WWE introducing the competition tasks. I also put posters on the walls and used lighting to create atmosphere, and MC’d the event by using appropriate wrestling-style language. Pupils were also allowed to dress up and those that were the biggest wrestling fans were split up across the tables in the hall to generate enthusiasm across the whole group.
We tackled each competition task in turn—discussing first and using visual stimuli where appropriate. For example, for the ‘Big Entrance Task’ we showed clips on the projector of famous WWE stars making their entrance to the ring. We modelled for the pupils in the ‘Creating Your Character’ task by creating our own characters first. For example, my character was ‘Singer the Stinger.’ Visual stimuli and modelling ensured that those who weren’t familiar with WWE would have prompts to aid their writing.
An example of the "Promo" activity from Year 5 pupil and competition winner William
The impact of the Road to WrestleMania competition was far-reaching. It has set a new precedent for writing across the school as every year group now has at least one writing day per term—Key Stage 1 have just done one with a pirate theme. Both our pupils and staff were positively impacted. Pupils had lots of fun and are still talking about the competition. They were so busy enjoying themselves that they didn’t even realise how much writing they’d actually done. When our teachers reflected on the day, explaining to the pupils how much they had written and the different kinds of texts they had tackled, pupils were proud of their achievements.
Our pupils are now more free with their writing and the topics that they choose. Road to WrestleMania made them realise that certain topics are not just gender-specific and that they can write about anything that interests them. One particular group of disengaged boys, normally needing extra support and attention, were absorbed in the tasks for the whole day and required almost no support with the competition tasks. These pupils realised they are writers. Due to this, staff have realised the value of tapping into pupil interests to engage them in writing.
We have built on the momentum of the competition by making a real fuss of William, the competition winner. When William found out he had won, he said that he “felt joyful and amazed.” William also said he was excited to be a guest manager at a WWE event, meet a WWE star or diva, and sit ringside for the event — part of the prize for winning. William mentioned that his favourite task was step one (creating the character), “because it got my artistic side out which I didn’t know I had.” He also said that the competition showed him “how well I can create stuff by writing it down.”
As for the rest of the participating pupils in the Road to WrestleMania competition, they have been rewarded for their efforts through VIP wristbands donated by WWE, ensuring that the competition buzz is maintained throughout the school.
