Writing

Writing

Our Vision:

“We are here to bring learning to life for every member of our school community, just as water brings life to the world. We are here to prepare children for their journey through life as responsible respectful citizens of the future who are ambitious, courageous and kind. We are a school that is proud to be creative, caring, nurturing and challenging in equal measure. We aim to develop life-long learners who thrive in our care and bring life to the future of our world.”

 

And so, our vision for English is for children to see themselves as writers, creating writers who write for purpose with their audience in mind, finding enjoyment through their creativity. We aim to expose children to a wealth of literature, authors and text types to create writers who write for both pleasure and purpose.

Read about our Whole School Approach using Talk4Writing to writing below.

Whole School Approach Writing

Writing Endpoints

The Teaching of Phonics and Early Writing

Phonics (spelling and reading)

At St. George’s, we believe that all our children can become fluent writers (and readers). This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At St. George’s, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared writing (and reading), both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for writing and reading in all subjects.

Emergent writing

In EYFS we encourage children to write for many different purposes. There are many different stages a child needs to explore when learning to write. The very first stage may be a child just making marks on a piece of paper. As your child develops their knowledge of early writing skills and control of simple drawing tools, they will begin to write some letter shapes. Praise and encouragement are vital.

The teaching of early writing is prioritised, every opportunity is used to promote writing. The classroom is rich in vocabulary, prompts for writing and a wide range of materials and tools are available for children to use to mark make and write.

The Teaching of Writing: Talk for Writing

The curriculum is planned and sequenced over a 2-3 year cycle.

Each writing unit begins with a ‘Cold Piece’ of writing identifiable by a blue learning objective. This formative assessment allows the teacher to plan for the learning needs of the class, specific groups and individual children.

Writing is taught through the Talk for Writing (T4W) three stage approach: Imitation, Innovation & Independent Application.

Children’s imitation story maps.

The Class Story map of Handa’s Surprise

Role play with Handa’s Surprise.

Class 3’s persuasive writing.

The Talk for writing process encompasses the following six areas.

Modelled writing and word banks, specific to the genre being taught, are displayed in classrooms to aid the pupils in their writing. Children work with staff to create writers ‘toolkits’, with techniques a writer could use in their writing.

Writing Genres

Writing Genres planned and sequenced over a 2-year cycle to ensure that children develop a bank of text types. The Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry genres have links to the curriculum theme.

Valuing Writing:

Writing through the years: every child’s writing displayed in our hall.

Children’s writing is valued. Children’s writing is shared and displayed in school: in classroom displays; on the Star of the week display board, our on whole school writing display and through our Friday sharing assembly. In our community: on the school newsletter; class pages on our school website and in the Clun Chronicle publication. To a global audience through online blogging, such as, TeachingLive.net and our website.

Handwriting

A flexible, fluent and legible handwriting style empowers children to write with confidence and creativity. Handwriting is a developmental process with its own distinctive stages of sequential growth.

There are five stages that form the basic organisational structure of the Penpals Handwriting Scheme which the school follows:

  1. Physical preparation for handwriting: gross and fine motor skills leading to mark-making, patterns and letter formation (EYFS)
  2. Securing correct letter formation (Key Stage 1, Year 1)
  • Beginning to join along with a focus on relative size and spacing (Key Stage 1, Year 2)
  1. Securing the joins along with a focus on break letters, legibility, consistency and quality (Lower Key Stage 2,)
  2. Practising speed, fluency and developing a personalised style for different purposes (Upper Key Stage 2)

Handwriting must also be practised discretely and in context. Handwriting is best taught through frequent, discrete lessons with ‘little and often’ follow up. This is timetabled as a 20 minute weekly lesson (10mins whole class, 10 independent practise), 5 minute daily practice (school/home) and monitored across the curriculum.

Spelling

Spelling is taught in three 15 minutes sessions a week based as a three part cycle of teach, apply and assess. Spellings follow the Letters and Sounds Phonic phase that the children are focused on and/or the statutory spelling patterns, pre fixes, suffixes, homophones and statutory word lists. The children are taught a variety of strategies/ cues to support in the learning of spellings and transfer into long term memory.

Specific targeted interventions are used to support children who are not on track to meet age expected levels of attainment or reach their own specific progress measures such as greater depth. These can be in the form of precision intervention such as Nessi, or through catch up phonics and spelling interventions.

Grammar

Year group Grammar objectives are taught both discreetly and used and applied in context. SPAG.com is used in KS2, as homework and as an assessment tool. Focused grammar objectives are sequenced across the year. Year by Year progression is grammar is detailed in appendix 1.

Assessment

Teachers’ assess writing against the Early Learning goals (EYFS) and National Curriculum Objectives. Each unit starts with a ‘Cold Task’, formative assessment allows the teacher to plan for the learning needs of the class, specific groups and individual children. The unit ends with a ‘Hot Task’ to allow progress to be measured and inform future planning. Grammar is also assessed discreetly in KS2 through the use of SPAG.com and standardised grammar assessments.