WHEN Liam Worswick wrote his own story on the school website, little did he know it would be picked up by children on the other side of the country who not only read it — but added to it and continued it.

The eight-year-old who attends The Oaks Primary School in Sharples is one of the school's many keen writers who are writing for an audience via a blog.

And blogging is motivating the school's most reluctant of writers to get their creative juices flowing.

Liam said: "I love blogging because I enjoy sharing my learning with my class and visitors to our website. I felt amazing when children from a school in Devon were looking at my learning and even editing it."

Each class has its own blog, which, say teachers, encourages children to write, become independent learners and get their family involved in their learning.

Year six teacher Tom Hampson said: "We encourage the use of the school website by all children.

"It is a way of express their thoughts, ideas and learning to a wider audience.

"We take great pride in our school website and have had more than 29,500 hits from 76 different countries around the world in the last year — an average of 2,364 per month since we started counting — we welcome comments from everyone."

He added: "Writing on the school website gives children a purpose for their writing and allows children to share learning, ask questions and interact with their peers within and beyond school."

Mr Hampson said that questions and prompts he has posed on the website has led to pupils researching the questions — including at weekends — and responding.

He said: "It has an impact on children's writing. They know they are writing for an audience and it really enthuses them."

Mr Hampson said the children learn about e-safety as part of their use of the web.

And techn-savvy children are using digital media to enhance and enrich their learning, including year six recently creating a YouTube video singing the popular song Let it Go from the Disney film Frozen about their topic of chocolate.

Amelia Albinson, aged 10, said: "Blogging is brilliant because when I post something I know lots of people will see it.

"At the moment I am trying to improve my writing and I practice this on the blog at home.

"I really enjoy doing the activities on the website because it links with my learning at school."