If you’re looking to encourage pupils’ enthusiasm for writing, reading and peer assessment, then using DB Primary’s blog feature is perfect for this. The DB blog feature provides a great introduction into communicating online. Whether your class is using personal, class or public blogs, DB Primary allows free reign for creative writing within a secure environment that is fully integrated with DB’s profanity filter and reporting features.

Each child has their own personal blog which can be accessed easily from their homepage and the straightforward design enables pupils to navigate around their blog space with ease. Pupils can choose from a range of creative input tools to add to their blog. Blogging tools include text, paint, video and audio recording.

Blogging in EYFS and KS1 will need to be teacher-led and should be completed as a whole class activity.  Blog moderation should be set to ‘Comments Only’ (which will allow members to only add comments which will need to be approved), so that if any children do try and add a comment to a blog post, it will need to be moderated by the teacher before it is published.

To get started, show the class a blog post you have created and explain that a blog is a type of diary that is online. Let the children know that because it is on the internet they will be able to see it at home which means they can share it with their parents.

In discussion with the children add some text and images into a new blog entry. Undertake shared reading and modelled writing with the class. It is essential for the children to be involved in making choices regarding what is included in the blog entry.

If this is your class’s first blog post you may wish to use it as an introduction to the class. “Welcome to our class blog. We are “reception class”. In our class there are “20” children. We are learning about lots of things and having fun. Some of our favourite things to do are…” Add two/three favourite activities and select 5 potential images. Discuss with the children which 2 or 3 to use in the blog entry.

Following on from this, try and write one class blog entry a week to post to your community page about the learning going on in your classroom. Involve the children each time, letting them make choices about what they want to write about and whether to include any images or even videos! Encourage them to share their blog posts at home with their parents.

By the time the children reach lower KS2 they are hopefully quite familiar with the class blog on their community page. Continue creating a weekly class blog as a teacher-led, whole class activity as this is a good way of asking the children to reflect on their learning that week and it is also a good opportunity to model good writing. Set the blog moderation level to either ‘Comments only’ (which will allow members to only add comments which will need to be approved) or ‘None’ (which will allow members to only add comments and these will not need to be approved).

As well as writing class blog entries together, you may wish for the children to start to explore writing in their own personal blogs. Explain the difference between the community blog and their personal blogs and establish some rules and guidelines about what should be written about on their personal blogs.

If you have the ‘Members’ tab displaying in your community menu down the left, children will be able to visit each other’s pages and leave comments on each other’s blog entries. If you don’t want the children to be able to do this, then click the cogs icon in the top right-hand corner of your community page and edit which features are available on the menu down the side of the community page.

When the children reach upper KS2 they should be familiar with how the blog feature on DB Primary works and hopefully have a good understanding about what is expected of them when writing entries in their personal blog. At this point you probably want to move away from teacher-led blog posts and would like the children to be able to write their own blog entries on the community blog or be able to publish their own personal blog entries to the community blog. Set the blog moderation to ‘All Posts’ (blog posts and comments will need to be approved) and explain that it will be up to you as the community leader whether or not you want to approve their blog entries and comments to be published to the community blog.

The challenge is to be able to eventually move to setting the moderation level to just ‘Blog Entries Only’ (comments can be added without approval, but blog entries will need to be approved).