Set up a spy school

Children’s author, Tom Palmer, explains how he converted reluctant writers into masters of fiction by training them in the art of spying

A group of children were going through the bins in the headteacher’s office. Undetected by staff, they emptied the contents of one bin into a plastic bag and quickly left the room. They had two minutes now. To check the contents of the bin. To make a list of each item. To return the items, making it look like nothing had been moved.

The children carried out their mission swiftly, without making any errors. Two of them in the office, two of them on lookout, one of them distracting a teacher who was about to catch them in the act.

The five children planned the operation – along with two other teams of five who would go though bins in the staffroom and the caretaker’s office later in the day. They wrote a list of instructions as to who was doing what. And, later, they completed a written report that was sent back to me.

I had briefed the year sixes about their bin mission the day before. But not in person.

When the children came into school they saw a chalk mark on the wall round the side of the school. It is a sign I put there when I have left a dead drop. Whenever they see this mark, they must go – without being seen – to remove a loose plank from underneath a prefab classroom on the far side of the playground. There they will find a mission file left there by me.

A lot of children’s homework is dead dropped in this way too. It is a classic way that a spy master can communicate securely with his spies.

Why spies make good writers

When I had my first spy novel, Black Op, published by Puffin in May, I wanted to do more than tour schools and give readings. But what? How could I use the thrill children get from adventures in espionage to create an exciting activity for my visits?

One thing I have come to understand is that spies have a lot in common with writers. They both hang around watching people and observing their surroundings – sometimes in places where they shouldn’t really be. They take photos; they make notes; and then try to create a narrative using all the evidence they have gathered.

Understanding these connections helped me to realise I should go into schools and train children how to be spies.
Because, by creating spies, I would be creating writers. Or at least helping children who do not like writing to want to write a little more…

Willing recruits

Ask 100 children if they’d like to be a spy when they grow up and more than half will raise their hands. There is something about sneaking around, an element of danger and finding out things you are not supposed to that is very attractive.

That is why a lot of children like spy stories. They watch MI High and Spooks on the TV. They play Black Ops on their PlayStations. They read books likeYoungBondandJayne Blonde.

Many of the children who’d like to be spies may not like to write. They might be the kind of children who find it almost painful to run a pen across a piece of paper. Therefore, by training them to be spies, we might be able give them the urge and confidence to be writers.

Real spies are trained in the field and at their desks. Field work takes place away from the desk in actual missions and might include observation, gathering information, or pretending to be someone you are not. Desk work might involve working out the results of field work – as well as searching for information online.

Transferable skills

I am a regular visitor to Ghyllgrove Junior School in Basildon. I have been their adopted author for four years and have a great relationship with the English subject leader. Together, we now create resources for the National Literacy Trust, as well as running training sessions in using sport to encourage reading for pleasure.

My contact – let’s call her Agent B – agreed with my theory that spying might help the school’s weaker writers to improve their confidence and attainment, so for our work in 2011-2012 we decided to set up a Y6 spy ring.

To begin with, we worked out the key elements of writing we hoped children would come to enjoy and understand.
They were:

• Creating a character
• Writing dialogue
• Describing behaviour
• Describing setting
• Storyline

Next we had to link each skill to an aspect of spying, so that we could tie in field work with desk work, making writing about more than being sat in the classroom.

1 Making up a cover story

Spies have to make up lies about themselves all the time. They need fake passports and false personas to slip under the radar of their enemies. Their new persona has to feel real and have a bit of depth.This is not so differnt from creating a charachter in a story.

We worked with the children to help them create a new alias and make a list about what their alter ego might be like. To test the strength of their fictional persona, the children were interviewed by a member of MI5 (Agent B). We then asked them to write a diary entry from the point of view of their new alias, using the Wimpy Kid books as an accessible – and familiar – model to express themselves.

Agent P: “It felt like a real interview when we were being questioned for our cover story. You had to think hard. It made it more important that we had written down our false details.”

2 Bugging and transcribing

We arranged for the children to set up listening devices in the school office. They planted the devices, then meticulously transcribed what they had recorded, dealing with the way people, in the real life, miss out words, go ‘erm’ and repeat themselves. This was really useful in showing them that dialogue can be a more natural use of language than formal narration – that they don’t need to write ‘posh’ all the time.

They loved the combination of desk and field work for this activity.

Agent C: “You had to listen carefully to what people said. It helped me understand what characters might really say.”

3 Reading body language

Spies analyse body anguage to work out if someone is acting suspiciously, and writers can reveal a lot about character by describing these non-verbal clues.

We taught the children the basics of reading body language, then encouraged them to interpret other people’s behaviour. The children studied gestures like hands over mouths and crossed legs that showed how people were feeling, even
if they didn’t put those feelings into words.

Then we asked them to work similar gestures into the way they wrote about people in their stories, demonstrating this was a way showing, not telling.

Agent H: “You got to feel as though you were the character. It felt real. It made it easier to write about characters afterwards.”

4 Digging up dirt

Garbology is the science of rooting through someone’s bins to find some dirt on them.

As described above, we let the children rifle through the headteacher’s bins, adding to the intrigue by planting mysterious letters, torn up photos and other enigmatic objects. This exercise helped the children to describe settings and use ordinary, everyday objects to reveal more about a person. It also demonstrated how to observe the world as a writer does, always on the lookout for cyphers.

5 Snap shot stories

Interpreting surveillance pictures is similar to creating a narrative or story.

On television, detectives are often shown looking through a file of photos in which someone is up to no good, e.g. transferring stolen goods from one vehicle to another, or speaking with a known criminal.

In a similar fashion, we handed out a set of photos, asking children to place these in order and write a short narrative that would connect the different images. This helped them to see how a series of mini-scenes can be pieced together to form a story.

The children were then sent out to create their own photo- stories to reinforce what they had just learned.

Agent V: “This helped me with my writing because you had to look carefully at the photographs to really see what was happening.”

The plan is that, now the children have honed their spy skills, we will take them to an interesting venue and set up a scenario for them to interpret and write up.

The fact they have to write to me and report on the missions I have set seems to work quite well. Although they know not everything is real, they want to pretend it is. They want to communicate with me – write for a purpose, if you like – about what they have seen and what they think it means.