Writing
In each year group, we carry out nine Literacy: Writing units across the year, alongside additional opportunities for cross-curricular writing during Learning Journey sessions.
Texts we cover:
Years 1, 2, 3:
Years 4, 5, 6:
Letter Join
Letter Join is a great way to support your child with their handwriting at home. You can use this link (https://www.letterjoin.co.uk/) to watch videos with examples to develop your child’s confidence in joining letters, as well as find resources you can use to help them develop their letter formation and joins.
Please ask your child’s teacher for the password.
Videos
Here are some useful links to videos you can use to support your child with writing:
Writing at our school
Intent (The ‘why’)
"You can make anything by writing." (C.S Lewis)
Rationale
It is vitally important that all pupils leave school as proficient writers. All pupils need to secure the skills required to present and express their thoughts and ideas through their written work. Our writing curriculum aspires to ensure all pupils are given the opportunity to achieve this, whilst also developing a love for writing.
During writing sessions, pupils are given the opportunity to access texts from a range of genres and authors. They are encouraged to express their opinions on what they have read, supporting them in identifying writing genres and styles that are their preference. Each writing unit also gives all children the opportunity to develop their own skills and grammatical understanding, allowing them to produce writing in the style of each focus genre.
Through our writing curriculum, we also ensure all pupils are given opportunities to access high-level vocabulary, ensuring we are striving to allow them access to terminology they may not otherwise come across. This supports all pupils in understanding how and why they would need to write in a range of genres, developing their understanding of required levels of formality depending on the context.
The skills acquired support children in all areas of the curriculum. Their participation in these sessions will help all pupils later in life, benefiting them in whatever they go on to do.
Aims
Our writing curriculum aims to:
- give access to a rigorous and sequential approach to the writing curriculum which will develop their grammar, phonics, spelling, and punctuation in writing;
- at all stages, ensure opportunities for assessment to ascertain attainment and progress, carefully tracked throughout all pupil’s time at our school;
- ensure any gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils;
- provide quality core texts / books that connect closely to purpose of the genre being explored;
- include age-appropriate books with increasing stamina as pupils move up through the school, in order to make appropriate links with a given writing genre;
- ensure regular opportunities to develop pupils’ vocabulary and give extensive exposure to tier two and three vocabulary words, providing opportunities to apply these in written work;
- have planned opportunities and exposure to high-quality text models, in a variety of text types and genres, as models for writing independently;
- give pupils opportunities to be able to write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, selecting language that shows good awareness of the reader (at an age-appropriate level);
- allow pupils to use and apply their writing skills across the wider curriculum;
- encourage pupils to develop their understanding of skills needed to produce high-quality written work, including editing, redrafting and publishing.
Implementation
Curriculum organisation
Our writing curriculum is structured to ensure full coverage of the National Curriculum. We use the ‘Babcock’ writing units as a starting point from which to plan, teach and assess four-week units. Pupils are provided with a high-level focus text, as recommended through the ‘Babcock’ plans, and are provided with a clear purpose for the written work they will produce themselves.
Pupils in Key Stage One and Two follow these units, as presented in our ‘Writing Progression Plan’. This has been designed to ensure that knowledge and skills within the subject are taught progressively and revisited over time; this revisiting of knowledge and skills leads to deeper learning. All lessons have clear learning objectives which are shared and reviewed with the pupils. Through following this plan, we ensure that the expectations laid out in the National Curriculum are covered in full. Each writing unit is carried out over four weeks, with five one-hour long sessions each week. We also include additional grammar-focused sessions where needed.
In each year group, we follow the same structure for every four-week unit. In the first week, all pupils start with the opportunity to discuss the genre they will be focusing on and produce an ‘Elicitation Task’. This allows pupils to present their prior knowledge and understanding of writing in this genre. This is a planned opportunity for retrieval, as well as an assessment tool for teachers to identify pupils’ starting points. Following this, all pupils then identify the features of the genre they are learning about, with a specific focus on why the author has chosen to include these. During this week, pupils are also given the opportunity to access high-level vocabulary presented visually using ‘Communicate in Print’, which they can use throughout the unit.
In the second week of each unit, all pupils are given opportunities to explore the text in depth, which is referred to as the ‘text immersion’ week. During these sessions, pupils are encouraged to read the focus text, learn to recite sections and are given opportunities to express their opinions on the text. Where appropriate, this learning is then consolidated during reading sessions, during which children are provided with additional opportunities to learn about and discuss the focus text.
During the third week of each unit, all pupils are taught the grammar required to write effectively in the given genre. These objectives are laid out within the ‘Writing Progression Plan’, with objectives taken from the ‘Babcock’ units, as well as additional objectives added to ensure full coverage of the National Curriculum. The grammar pupils are taught becomes more complex as they move up the school, with new grammar rules taught alongside planned opportunities for retrieval.
When children come to the end of each unit, they are given the opportunity to produce their own writing inspired by the focus text. This is supported with sessions which allow the children to plan their writing, as well as opportunities to carry out ‘shared’ and ‘modelled’ writes. Pupils then produce a ‘Big Write’, which is a final piece of writing to display what they have learnt during the unit. These ‘Big Writes’ are linked to a purpose, both in terms of the effect the pupil plans to have on the reader, as well as what the writing has been produced for. For example, pupils have been given the opportunity to ‘publish’ their writing into small class books, post their writing to the recipient as well as share their writing with other children in the school.
For further information on the Writing curriculum, please contact our subject leader, Ellie Souter, on [email protected].
