English Writing

“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savour their songs.” – Nelson Mandela

We are Authors

“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”

- Lee Lacocca

Why should we learn Writing?

Writing is at the heart of all children’s learning; it enables children to both communicate with others effectively for a variety of purposes and to examine their own and others’ experiences, feelings and ideas, giving these order and meaning.

At St Matthew's we believe that literacy, language and communication are key life skills and that developing language skills, opens up a world of wonder and curiosity for all learners. Writing is central to children’s intellectual, emotional and social development; it has an essential role across the curriculum and helps pupils’ learning to be coherent and progressive across it.

How will it help children in later life?

Communication takes you to amazing places emotionally, imaginatively and in reality.

Become the: author, actor, editor, leader, illustrator, poet, storyteller, entertainer, biographer, team player, friend, listener, advocate, web designer, media mogul, influencer, news anchor, You Tuber, legal representative, judge, jury, politician, teacher, expert, professor, medic, financer, sales person, entrepreneur, DJ, retailer, sports commentator, carer, sports person, builder, asset manager…………. The list is endless for communication is essential to every career.

What do we want for St Matthew's children?

The study of English develops children’s ability to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of audiences and purposes. It is our desire that through our English curriculum children at St Matthew's develop and maintain a life-long relationship with reading. Reading is power and ignites a love of learning in our children. It enables them to be curious in what they know and learn, and to be confident. Reading will aid our children to broaden their horizons and encourage them to take risks.

At our school, we support all children to make effective progress in English. Through purposeful models specific to our intent, all children will develop a richer vocabulary, enabling them to articulate themselves clearly and are equipped with the necessary social skills to succeed in life.

Our writing long term plan is linked to our English long term plan and can be found here

Intent

At St. Matthew’s C.E. Primary, we aim to teach the skills of writing and a love of writing so that our children

Develop enjoyment and pleasure in writing
Have opportunities to write for a range of real purposes and audiences
Understand their context and developing empathy as a writer, e.g. being a reporter when writing a newspaper article, being a character when writing a diary, being a storyteller
Understand the skills and processes that are essential for writing: thinking aloud and re-reading their writing aloud to check their meaning is clear
Develop stamina to produce a quality piece of writing
When spelling, have opportunities to practise using both their phonics knowledge and develop independent spelling strategies
When writing, form their letters correctly and confidently, eventually writing with a joined fluent style
Know and use grammar terminology and punctuation to be able to talk about their writing and how it helps a reader to understand and enjoy what they have written

Implementation

Our teaching objectives cover five key areas:

Composition
Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
Spelling
Handwriting
Terminology

In Foundation Stage we:

Teach children to produce writing that someone else can read and enjoy.
Teach children how to sit correctly at a table, holding a pencil comfortably and correctly.
Develop children’s fine motor skills.
Teach children how to form their letters correctly, starting and finishing in the right place.
Teach children how to write the capital letters that their name begins with.
Develop a working wall next to our focus group table which exemplifies the learning journey – this is reflected in our environment.
Give children plenty of writing opportunities to support with gathering evidence to feed into assessment judgements - this should be child initiated as well as supported.
Make key vocabulary from our English text a main focus in both reading and writing lessons.
Regularly model to children how to communicate through writing.

In KS1 and KS2 we:

Continue to teach previous year groups’ skills and knowledge as well as current year group’s learning so that all primary writing skills and knowledge are fully embedded by the time children leave primary school.
Give children plenty of writing opportunities to support with gathering evidence to feed into assessment judgements.
Make key vocabulary from our literacy text a main focus in both reading and writing lessons.
Model how to write, edit and give them plenty of time to produce a piece of writing.
Teach children in a clear progression through a writing journey, immersing them in the text/genre and teaching them the skills they need to be able to write their final outcome.
Give children time to respond to marking either immediately or at the beginning of the next lesson.
Mark writing so that it supports children’s editing.

Spelling

At St Matthew's, we will be using SCODE teach spelling in Key Stage 2 from the Summer Term.

Please click here to find out more about progression, and here to look at the long term view.

Handwriting

We use Letter-join’s on-line handwriting resource and progression as the basis of our handwriting policy as it covers all the requirements of the Early Years Framework and the National Curriculum and builds fluency and stamina for writing. The children can access Letter-join both in school and at home which reinforces letter and number formations taught at each phase and the phonics and the statutory spellings and grammar for all year groups.

An Introduction to Letter-join: Letter-join whole school handwriting scheme

Impact

Teachers use assessment as an integral part of the teaching and learning process and link it clearly to the children’s next steps.

Formative assessment grids (statements taken from progression map)
Constructive marking with ‘next steps’ and ‘modelling’ where appropriate. Teachers leave next steps in books when marking to ensure that children know exactly what they need to do next to make progress in their writing and children are encouraged to respond to this in green pen.

The impact on our children is that they have the knowledge and skills to be able to write successfully for a purpose and audience. With the implementation of the writing sequence being established and taught in both key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and have the ability to plan, draft and edit their own work.

By the end of key stage 2, children have developed a writer’s craft, they enjoy sustained writing and can manipulate language, grammar and punctuation to create effect.

As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing is seen as just as important as English writing and skills taught in the English lesson are transferred into other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific language, grammar and punctuation.

Writing in Years 1 - 6

At St Matthew's, children study a range of different writing genres – many of which link to their learning across other areas of the curriculum. Teachers plan using a ‘plan backwards’ approach which enables children to become fully immersed in the genre that they are studying and become secure in the grammatical features of each text type.

Children begin each writing unit by reviewing their previous knowledge of text types and studying ‘model texts’ (which have been specifically designed to link to our wider curriculum) and a range of high-quality literature. Teachers use these texts to teach grammatical, presentational and language features of different genres. Children become more adept in identifying and constructing their own writing using these features. Writing lessons will usually follow the structure of:

Diagnostic tasks - to assess previous knowledge of the text type
Text deconstruction – to allow children to be immersed in the text type and identify key grammatical, presentational and language features
Contextualised construction – to enable children to learn and applying specific features of the text type in shorter bursts of writing
Reconstruction – to enable children to compose, construct and create their own writing in the style of the model text.
Assess and feedback – to allow teachers to assess progress in writing linked to the key features of the text type and give children the opportunity to edit and improve their compositions based on feedback.

Our writing units are based around a high-quality core text which act as a stimulus and provide a vehicle for the writing opportunities. Alongside these core texts, we believe that it is important that the children are provided with good quality model texts so that they are clear of the writing expectations for their year group. This also enables them to see what a good piece of writing looks like.

The writing journey begins with activities to assess where the children are which is then used by teachers to inform the planning and teaching sequence. The children then learn the skills needed through a process of shared and individual practice. These skills include text type specific features, grammatical features, punctuation and spelling. It is important that these skills are taught in the context of the writing unit as a way for them to learn, practise and apply them. Writing tasks are differentiated appropriately to ensure that all children can access the learning and make progress. Assistive technologies are also used to support the writing of children with identified needs.

Towards the end of the teaching sequence, the children will then produce a final write and are given time to carry out detailed editing and redrafting. Teachers will assess throughout the teaching sequence and adapt planning and activities to reflect the needs of the children. The final piece is used to assess the progress that the children have made and to identify any other areas which need development.

Inclusion

Adaptive teaching is key to delivering an effective and inclusive curriculum. All pupils' starting points are considered and activities and work is matched to ensure pupils reach their full potential, whilst supporting the child's learning. Adult support, a range of activities, adaptations, equipment and resources can enable children of all abilities to access learning.

Our school will ensure that:

all children have entitlement to a broad and balanced, enriching curriculum
all children enjoy an active involvement in English
all children have opportunities to experience a broad and balanced range of English activities
all children have opportunities to learn about English from different times and cultures
all children will be given equal access to the experience of English regardless of their gender, race, disability, medical or other needs
teachers use a variety of approaches that are matched to the activity and the ability of the children