Below is an anonymised example of the individual feedback children can receive through the Writing Clinics.

Year 5: The Teacher I Misjudged

Strengths

This is a smashing piece overall, and the opening is definitely the strongest part: it's great!
There’s some good showing straight away, a fabulous simile and a correctly used colon. She’s thought carefully about how to begin the story rather than simply explaining everything to us.
The spelling, punctuation and grammar are also pretty sound throughout, which makes the writing easy to follow.
There are quite a few literary devices in the piece, and they’ve generally been used well. They’re apt and relevant rather than simply being added for the sake of it. We don’t want children writing from a tick list, but it’s worth thinking about where literary devices can be used naturally and judiciously so that they actually make sense within the writing.
There are some good ideas in the story, particularly the friendship between the two children, the strict teacher and the decision to sneak away from the group. The basic story itself works well, and I think this piece would probably do well in a test.

Story and Writing

The opening is great. After that, though, there are parts of the story that could have been tightened or condensed, and other parts that could have been shown more. Paragraph three, for example, is largely telling and doesn’t really add anything important to the conflict. The story could have moved much more quickly from the opening to the children going towards the merry-go-round, which would have brought us closer to the main action sooner.
There are several places where she already has the right idea, but it could have been shown more clearly. Rather than explaining that the character wasn’t tall enough for the ride, for example, we could have seen her standing next to the height restriction while talking to her friend. That would have shown us what was wrong without needing to explain it.

The same applies later when the character says that she took a deep breath and explained what had happened. We don’t really need to be told that she explained it. We could simply hear that conversation between the character and the teacher.

Things to Work On

The biggest thing I’d work on is condensing the telling and showing us the important parts as they happen.
There are around three paragraphs covering the teacher returning, the children being taken into the lunchroom and the character sitting furthest away. I think most of that could probably have been condensed into one paragraph. We don’t really need to see the children being ushered into the lunchroom.
That would have allowed the story to move more quickly into the important part: the children sneaking away, the teacher discovering what they’ve done and the resulting conflict.

I think the story might also have worked better if more of the action had happened in one place. We could have seen the teacher being very strict, making everyone line up and checking that all the children were there. The two friends could then have sneaked into another queue, followed by the teacher’s reaction when she realised they were missing.
I’d also like to see a little more conflict. The teacher is established as very strict, but she seems to give in fairly quickly later in the story. Keeping that conflict going for a little longer could have added more drama.
There’s also one small plausibility point in the second paragraph. The teacher telling the children off for making too much noise makes sense, but the part about an incorrect hairstyle feels slightly less believable. I’m not sure it would necessarily lose marks, but it’s something I’d think about when choosing realistic details.
There are already quite a few literary devices in the piece, but one thing that could perhaps have been added is a metaphor connected to one of the rides.
Overall, she’s done very well. The main thing now is to tighten some of the telling and show us the conflict and action sooner.
This month’s Zoom clinics focused very much on how to choose the conflict from a title and where to start the story, so that teaching ties in particularly well with this piece.