English Writing
Intent
Why do we teach this? Why do we teach it in the way we do?
At Brightlingsea Primary School and Nursery, we understand that writing is an essential skill and that we must overcome any barriers that prevent children from becoming confident writers. We aim to help our children develop these skills in the following ways:
- Introducing and deconstructing a wide variety of model texts, covering a variety of genres
- Exposing and highlighting higher level vocabulary
- Giving children opportunities to write for an authentic purpose
- Ensuring children have the opportunities to talk about and plan their writing
- A solid understanding of grammar and ability to use it for effect (see SPaG Policy).
- Giving children opportunity to draft, plan, write, evaluate, revise and edit their own work as well as offer feedback on the work of their peers
- To be able to spell, not only the prescribed spelling words but also beyond, through the teaching of spelling rules (see SPaG Policy).
- Take pride in their work and its presentation, including their handwriting (handwriting policy pending).
We aim to ensure all of our children develop a genuine love of language and the written word, through a text-based approach; this links closely to the way we teach reading, as the texts that we use in VIPER lessons will help to build upon our writing skills in writing lessons.
Careful links are made across the curriculum to ensure that children’s English learning is relevant and meaningful: where possible, linking our reading, writing and the topic that we are covering in History/ Geography. We ensure that children develop an understanding of how widely writing is used in everyday life and, therefore, how important and useful the skills are that they are learning.
Our intentions in writing are for children to:
- Write for a purpose and see themselves as real writers
- Learn from an exposure to a variety of texts in the genre they are writing in
- Take ownership of their writing
- See writing as an interesting and enjoyable process
- Acquire the ability to organise and plan their written work
- Acquire the ability to edit and improve the work of others and their own (in line with GPS objectives relevant to their banding)
Implementation:
What do we teach? What does this look like?
The writing process at Brightlingsea Primary School and Nursery:
Independent write for assessment
- Cold Task (before you do your planning for this unit) with a hook to capture the children’s interest that is linked to their topic.
Read and respond
- A series of lessons linked to the genre
- Hook, enjoyment & purpose (linked to topic)
- Immersion in the genre; reading quality texts; look at different examples
- Capture and ‘magpie’: language, style, sentence structures etc.
- Identify text features (success criteria)
Purpose:
- We will be writing a letter to …
- I have a problem, can you help me to sort it?
- There is a competition…for
- We need a campaign…to
- These leaflets will be used to help…
- Our stories will be read to…
- Our stories will be sent to/displayed …on
Immersion in a genre
- KS1 role play
- Displays
- Use same genre in reading lessons
- Look at text extracts and other examples
- Agreed and composed with children as you are learning about the text type
- Not pre-published
- This will be their ‘aide memoire’ when planning and writing
Planning for independent writing
- Leading children through the structured plan (based on everything you learned during read/respond)
- Children will be supported in a variety of ways e.g. LSA, group, peer, class teacher, independent.
- Prepare language choices
- Prepare for using text features/success criteria
- Encouraged to refer to previous learning in their books
- Encouraged to use the working wall as a reference point
Write
- Follow the plan
- Lead them through process
- Create a model text (above the children’s level); do this with them
- Model and let them go; shared writing
- Constantly refer back to success criteria
Editing
- NOT writing up in best
- Refer back to success criteria to make improvements
- Responding to marking
- Using purple polishing pens to edit and improve writing in line with SPaG requirements relevant to their year group
Independent write for assessment
Hot task – after all of the writing process has taken place. This part of the process has a new hook that allows the children to apply their newly acquired knowledge.
Impact
What will this look like?
By the time children leave our school they will:
- Make good progress from their KS1 results
- Most children will meet ARE and will be ready for the secondary curriculum at the end of KS2
- Have a love and confidence for writing and write for enjoyment across a range of genres, purposes and audiences
- Be able to apply spelling and grammatical concepts in their work.
- Become confident and effective communicators with a rich vocabulary
- Be able to produce written work in all areas of the curriculum to a high standard
Learning environments
Content on the learning walls is current and reflects the learning journey undertaken throughout the unit (teaching should encourage children to be a part of building the working wall together and reminding children to use and access the learning from the working wall to support their writing).
- Each class displays examples of pupils’ high quality writing
- Modelled examples are to be displayed
- The classroom is a vocabulary-rich environment
Assessment
Target Tracker will be used termly to assess the progress that the children have made in their writing. SLT and the English leader will analyse the data and set subsequent targets for individual year groups/ track and monitor interventions. Staff will use the assessment tool to inform planning for individuals and the whole class, ensuring interventions are in place to address gaps.
Monitoring
We are aware of the need to monitor and review/ update the school’s writing policy on a regular basis so that we can take account of the improvements made in our practice, and changes to assessments, materials and government requirements. We will therefore review this policy at least once every year.
Formal review
- Writing throughout the school and how it reflects this policy, will also be reviewed throughout the year in the following ways:
- Governors’ work scrutiny
- SLT/ YGL planning, recorded learning, assessment scrutiny
- English Leader’s scrutiny
- Learning walks
- EYFS/KS1/KS2 external moderation
- EYFS/KS1/KS2 internal moderation
- Individual year groups moderation for consistency and ability progression
- Monitoring across year groups for progression
- Moderation with other schools