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.
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
To support this to happen, the children from years 1 – 3 have a heavy focus on the transcription elements of the writing process while year’s 4 - 6 focus more on the composition elements. Children’s work is monitored and moderated regularly to promote high levels of attainment. Children who find writing more challenging are identified early and appropriate support is given early.
Implementation
Teaching and Learning at Acres Hill Community Primary School
At Acres Hill, we follow the National Curriculum for the teaching and learning of writing skills. We are committed to raising the standards of children’s writing to ensure that all children make good progress and achieve in line with national expectations. The curriculum will be monitored by the English Lead to ensure that there is a sufficient level of challenge and high-quality stimulation to improve standards of writing across school.
Acres Hill has a focus on two distinct elements of writing: transcription and composition. Automaticity in transcription is developed early on and secured by lower key stage 2 so that older pupils are able to pay attention to the higher-level process of composition, planning, writing and revision. Both of these are essential for developing lifelong, successful writers and it is vital that teaching is adapted and opportunities planned for to develop children’s skills in these areas.
The Writing Curriculum begins in Early Years. For the 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 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.
Strategies for the teaching of writing
Children are provided with a range of opportunities to develop, extend and deepen their writing skills in and across each phase of education. In Nursery and Reception, the learning of writing follows the EYFS Framework where children are given the opportunities to extend their understanding of language through play and investigation. The National Curriculum determines what must be taught in key stages 1 and 2. The school follows a clear writing cycle which allows for these objectives to be taught and adopts the following phases:
Key Stage 1 and Year 3 will focus more heavily on the transcription and sentence structure in writing so that when the children reach Year 4, the cognitive load of writing is reduced and the children focus more on the planning, drafting and editing processes.
Immersion- This is mainly done through reading high quality texts but, on occasion, may include links to video, music or pictures. These high-quality elements are used as a hook and inspiration for writing.
Speaking and listening – Children are given regular opportunities to discuss and share ideas before implementing this into written work.
Vocabulary – In each writing cycle, the children are introduced/reminded of tier 2 vocabulary that fits in with the text they are writing. Children are then given opportunities to explore and develop this language, using the words in the correct context.
Punctuation and Grammar – The teaching of grammar and punctuation is contextualised to the children’s writing and allows them to build towards a final piece. Children are encouraged to refer back to previous learning in the cycle and include these elements in their independent writing.
Writing is linked to a specific learning objective within the context of a genre.
The thought processes involved in writing with regards to composition and syntax is modelled clearly by the teacher in shared writing sessions.
Shared Writing
We adopt an ‘I do, we do, you do’ approach to shared writing where the ideas are discussed and the teacher clearly models their thought process for composing a piece of writing. Once this has been shared, children are given the opportunity to discuss and share ideas for the next section of the writing, and this is constructed as a class. For children who are ready, they move on independently while others go back to the shared approach.
During the ‘I do’ element, syntax and relevant SPaG objectives are explicitly modelled to pupils to allow them to achieve specific objectives and write coherently for a specific audience and purpose.
Independent Writing
Following the shared write, children then engage in the process of composing their independent piece by using all the elements from the taught cycle.
Once a first draft is completed, the children edit and improve their work. This activity may be completed independently; in peer groups; with a teacher or T.A. Adaptations will be written in green pen. At least two final pieces will be completed per half term.
Children are also given opportunities to practise their writing skills across the curriculum.
Spelling
We use Spelling Shed and children are set weekly spellings from this.
Impact
Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning and is a continuous process. It is the teacher’s responsibility to assess the pupils in their class and identify the next steps in their learning. The following strategies are used to support this:
Assessment for Learning – Information for continued assessment is gathered in a variety of ways: by talking to children, observing their work, questioning and marking.
Assessment of Learning – The attainment of the child is assessed and formally recorded termly. This information is gathered from a range of written pieces that a child has completed and then assessed against the key objectives for the year group. This information is used to identify priority areas across school.
Feedback – Children are provided with timely feedback to allow them to improve their writing. This may be done either verbally or in written form. Children are also encouraged to self and peer assess each other’s work to develop their understanding.
Staff are also given regular opportunities to moderate within school and across the schools in our locality. Writing exemplification materials (for example, from the Department for Education or Local Authority) are also used to inform teacher assessment, where available.
Writing Culture
The importance of writing as a means of communication and creativity is promoted by all adults in school and used to support learning across the curriculum. The children are highly motivated to produce high quality pieces of writing and talk with enthusiasm and passion about the writing that takes place in our school. We hope that by building a robust and exciting curriculum that incorporates all of the elements mentioned in this document, the children at Acres Hill will leave us as enthusiastic and competent writers with a love of the written word.