Posted on: 11/02/2025
Editing is an essential part of the creative writing process. Through talking with teachers and school managers around the country, we have put together five important components in a school’s overall approach to fostering a creative, editing environment.
1. Editing must be a whole-school approach with a shared pedagogy laid out as part of a feedback and marking policy. Part of this whole-school approach would be an agreement about the appropriate amount of time to set aside each week – say 30 mins per week if possible.
2. But what does this quality editing time look like? Children can swap books and offer feedback to their peers or listen to a peer read back their work aloud. Children can also be encouraged to reread the same piece of work through different lenses: focusing on spelling/omitted words; punctuation and overall composition.
3. Children need to see their teachers write everyday and part of this is modelling editing behaviours. A range of editing strategies can be modelled, such as: linking writing back to the LO/SC; underlining key skills when they are used, deliberately making mistakes and correcting them; thinking aloud and externalising creative writing choices.
4. Impact marking which asks questions such as, ‘could you redraft this paragraph using a wider range of adverbials?’ or ‘could you think about using more exciting verbs here?’ goes a long way to encouraging children to think about overall composition.
5. Termly publishing opportunities will enhance children’s sense of audience and purpose, reenforcing the message that they are not just writing for themselves, but to communicate to others and in to do this clearly we need to reread and edit our work.
In summary, editing is a crucial part of the creative process and, from at least Y2, children need to be in the habit of rereading their work and the work of others. Editing must evolve from children ‘making simple additions and revisions’ to reflecting on overall compositional choices as children develop as writers.
