Writing

Intent

At Acres Hill Community Primary School our English Writing Curriculum is planned with the intent that all children, regardless of background, will become fluent, insightful readers and confident, creative writers.  Our Curriculum develops children’s knowledge and skills in order to be confident and clear communicators.

The Writing Curriculum design supports children from their Early Years of school through to the end of Key Stage 2.  Throughout their time with us children are taught to develop their writing, from the basic skills of writing to more complex ideas.  For example, from hearing sounds in words, forming letters and orally composing sentences, to developing their understanding of punctuation and grammar and the different types of genres available.

Children's skills and knowledge are planned to build progressively across year groups so that as children develop their writing skills they are able to write with increasing complexity and within different genres. 

We understand that children becoming confident and interested writers means that they are best placed to access the entire curriculum, and that children who are confident and adept readers and writers are more likely to have successful, happy and productive adult lives. 

Writing is a high priority for all staff at Acres Hill Community Primary School.

 Our English Writing Curriculum:

• Develops in all children a love of reading and writing
• Nurtures children’s skills to express themselves – verbally and in writing
• Ensures that children acquire fundamental writing skills in order that they can write coherently and communicate their ideas effectively
• Enables children to build the knowledge and skills required so that they are able to write accurately and creatively regardless of genre or topic
• Provides opportunities for children to be reflective, motivated and resilient learners

Implementation

Our Writing Curriculum focuses on children’s skills and knowledge progressively building across year groups.  Children's later Writing Curriculum learning years are designed to follow on from what children will have learnt previous, with opportunities to consolidate learning and enhance writing skills throughout their time in school.

The Writing Curriculum begins in Foundation Stage / Early Years.  For our children in our community, within the Early Years Curriculum we ensure that there is a focus on developing particular core skills that we recognise as being key to building success in Writing.  Alongside Phonics and Phonetic Awareness teaching, we also plan to emphasise development in particular areas of the Early Years including Communication and Language (interactions, language and vocabulary), Physical Development (both at a Gross and Fine Motor Skill level) and Personal, Social and Emotional (i.e. children’s readiness for learning). We understand that, for the children in our community to be confident, creative and successful writers later in life they need to be particularly supported to attain Good Levels of Development in these strands of the Early Years Curriculum.  

Throughout Key Stage 1, our curriculum focuses on supporting children to build the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to more complex writing that will be developed later on in school.  The Key Stage 1 Writing Curriculum supports children to write with purpose, with a focus on children's work at a Sentence Level.  Throughout Year 1 and Year 2, children are supported to develop their transcriptional skills so that they can write fluently and accurately.  Practices such as the use of dictation, oral composition and rehearsal, handwriting sessions, the inter-weaving of taught Phonetic skills and knowledge alongside year group specific spellings (into modelled, shared and independent writing), and a drawing together of the different fragments of Writing learning, ensure that children are able to plan and create accurate, purposeful sentences whilst minimising the working load on the amount of information that children are required to process whilst they are writing. 

In Key Stage 2, children then develop the knowledge and skills developed in earlier years through the use of text led, genre specific writing which is also linked to the teaching of contextual Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPAG).  SPAG teaching of knowledge and skills is mapped across year groups and forms part of children’s Writing learning.  Literacy units in Key Stage 2 normally comprise of 2-3 week learning blocks. These units of work allow children to explore and understand the genre of writing being used and its intended audience and purpose, build up the elements required to produce a piece of writing specific to the genre and culminate in children producing finished pieces of genre based writing.  This approach empowers our children to be competent, independent and interesting writers by the time they leave our school and move onto the next phase of their education.

Impact

Children's Writing Outcomes are captured in their 'Writing Outcomes' books.  At the end of units of work, children use these books to capture their final pieces of writing.  These books follow children throughout their time at Acres Hill and provide children , families and staff with a view to the child's progress in their writing learning and their next writing steps.

Teachers assess children's writing through the use of year group specific writing grids and intended writing outcomes from unit specific Medium Term Planning.  These plans are mapped by school's English Subject Co-ordinator to ensure coverage, progression and assessment of writing knowledge and skills.  Writing exemplification materials (for example, from the Department for Education or Local Authority) are also used to inform teacher assessment, where available.

Teachers assess children's writing regularly to inform next steps for classes, groups and individuals within and between units of work.  School captures this writing data on a termly basis.

Teacher's writing judgements are moderated termly at different levels including: within school between teaching staff and alongside the Writing Lead, within the Sheffield South East Trust and the wider Locality C group of schools, through Local Authority arranged Moderation events and processes.