Writing
Intent
A high-quality English curriculum is fundamental in order that children develop skills in reading, writing and oracy. This will enable them to express themselves creatively and imaginatively and to communicate with others effectively. The aim of our English curriculum is to promote high standards of literacy and children will learn to become creative and competent writers through engaging, inspirational and aspirational materials and through support and challenge.
To achieve this vision, we aim to do the following:
- promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping children with a strong command of the spoken and written language
- ensure that all children acquire a wide vocabulary
- acquire an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- write clearly, accurately and coherently
- adapt their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn
- elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- are competent in the arts of speaking and listening
EYFS
In Reception the foundations for writing are supported and developed through the use of quality texts, developing strong oracy skills, imagination, storytelling and drawing from children’s interests. Children are taught to read and write using the Little Wandle phonics programme which builds up their phonic knowledge and skill of segmenting to spell. The programme is taught daily. The continuous provision environment allows children to have independent mark making and writing opportunities as part of their play. They are taught to write for a range of purposes such as – shopping lists, labelling pictures, writing instructions, letters making their own books
Key Stages 1 and 2
The long-term overview includes a wide variety of text types for different purposes.
Implementation
Writing
Each class, across Key Stage 1 and 2, spend an hour a day on writing. Writing units normally last 3 weeks, are based around a high-quality text and consist of 3 stages. Stage one is looking at the genre type, identifying the features and introducing the text. Stage 2 is looking at the text in more detail and building the blocks needed for the final write, including the teaching of the grammatical elements of the curriculum needed for the genre type. The final stage is planning, writing and editing a longer piece of writing using the skills learn over the unit. Each lesson starts with a grammar or spelling warm up in order to reinforce prior learning and revise key terms.
Spelling
Initially spelling is taught through the Little Wandle phonics programme from Reception to Year 2. Within these lessons, children learn to form their letters and write simple captions and sentences.
From Year 3 to Year 6 spelling is taught using the Read Write Inc spelling scheme.
Handwriting
In Reception and Year 1, children will learn to form letters using the Little Wandle programme, reinforced with LetterJoin. From Year 2, children will learn cursive formation and begin to join their handwriting. Across the school, we use LetterJoin to continue to practise our cursive writing
Impact
Children’s English books will show the following:
- an increasing understanding of knowledge and skills
- demonstrate a clear sequence of learning
- clearly show children’s progressing in their learning through self-reflection, responding to teacher feedback and independently editing their own work
Formative Assessment:
- Pupils are given tasks throughout a unit which enable staff to assess pupil’s understanding. Opportunities are given for assessment such as short writes, quizzes, varied questioning, whiteboard work, eliciting evidence of prior knowledge, lesson starters revising key learning, given success criteria.
- At the end of each writing unit, each piece of writing is assessed against the criteria taught. This is pupil assessed and teacher assessed. Teacher feedback is given through marking as well as verbally.
Summative assessment:
- Early Learning Goals
- Writing assessed 3 times a year against our curriculum statements
- Moderation of teacher judgements both within the school (all year groups) and across the other school
- NFER/SATs assessment papers for spelling, punctuation and grammar in Y2-6 carried out 3x a year (2x a year for year 1)
These enable us to see any children requiring additional support and also informs teachers’ planning.
