The Future

Junior Writers

Ali introduced today’s theme to the nine junior writers: the future. The group completed a ‘Fill in Fun’ worksheet about Zomo and Sallybot. They shared their stories, including chopping aliens in half, Costa cups and a pineapple. Some gave clever references to recent events but referred to them in the distant past, e.g. surgical masks worn in Covid times and old-fashioned Haribo sweets. There was screaming in many of the stories, which is a little worrying.

Ali then turned the ‘Future Crank’, and the group called out successive years until they reached 2044. The Junior Writers were encouraged to look out the window and shout what they could all see. There were people, birds, benches, trees and even someone’s parents!

Next, everyone was asked to give their ideas of what we might see in twenty years' time, and Ali wrote these on the flipchart. They discussed robots and how we already have many in our lives. They all agreed they imagined life-like robots that eased daily tasks.

The Junior Writers then wrote a futuristic story using their fabulous imaginations. We heard about dinosaurs escaping from the zoo, Dodos coming back to life, and even Sue and Ali in a floating boat car on their way to the retirement home. One of the best lines was, ‘Nobody likes it when you randomly scream.’

The final was a Dear Diary exercise, which involved writing a day at school but twenty years in the future. Food was a recurrent theme, with edible cloud and lightening, as well as Dodo and dinosaur meat. They thought our homes would be jellybean-flavoured pods and we would have personal robots to write for us, feed us and carry us home. They also had to study ‘old fashioned music’, like Taylor Shift and Ed Shearan.

Returning to 2024, the Junior Writers left for the rest of their day and into their half-term holidays. See you all in a few weeks' time (in the future!).

Young Writers

The Young Writers came in from the sun and were immediately catapulted into the future with the ‘Fill In Fun’ worksheet. Futuristic city music was playing to help boost their creative thoughts. They rose to the challenge and dreamed up ‘Do Not Disturb’ suits, self-washing trousers and a vintage face mask from the 20s.

Ali used the ‘Crank of the Future’ and transported everyone to 2051, 27 years from now. They explored how life might be, including AI full-body humanoid robots, holograms, and more buildings than now. They imagined what they would see out of the MAST window in 27 years’ time. The Young Writers wrote about communication with holograms, hover cars, statues made of pixels, and the Great War against the robots.

We listened to silly music about unicorns and guinea pigs in break time! Then, we returned to the next writing task, about a school day in the year 2051. They imagined everyone would be issued with floating chairs, robotic teachers, and gas marks (but people were only allowed outside for three minutes). One person framed the story as a contract for parents to sign, which was highly imaginative and chilling, in equal measure.

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The Future