Respect – Resilience – Read – Retain
Respect – we aim to develop a sense of respect for themselves, peers, adults, other faiths and cultures, the environment and the wider world
Resilience – we aim to develop a ‘give it a go’ and ‘its ok to make mistakes’ attitude within our children to prepare them for life beyond school
Read – we believe that reading is the doorway to all learning, we will prioritise the teaching of reading in school
Retain – we aim for our children to know more and remember more, our curriculum design will reinforce and revisit skills and knowledge
Subject Leader - Mrs Ward
At St. Teresa’s Primary School, we use our adventurous reading to inspire children to become confident, skilled writers across a variety of genres. We believe in preparing children to have the ability to write for a range of real-life purposes to enable them to communicate effectively in their lives beyond education.
Intent
Following the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum and Early Learning Goals, the school endeavours to engender a life – long love of writing. We use Read to Write as a writing strategy in school alongside Steps to Read which complement each other.
It is our intention to ensure that reading and writing are interconnected so that children can make purposeful links across their learning. It is for this reason that we place a significant focus on the study of literature from across the ages and across genres. Vocabulary rich books are chosen to both stimulate and challenge the children, leading to high-quality writing outcomes.
We empower teachers to provide high-quality teaching of writing through children’s high-quality literature (Vehicle Texts). The units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities.
- Clear Sequential Episodes of Learning
- Learning Objectives that link to the teaching sequence (Immerse, Analyse, Plan Write)
- Vocabulary Learning
- Contextualised Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation
- Sentence Accuracy Work Linked to National Standards
- Writing Knowledge linked to National Standards
- Wider Reading for the Wider Curriculum
- Explicit Links to the National Curriculum
Several of these carefully selected Vehicle Texts have strong thematic links to the Science, History and Geography curriculum.
Spelling and Handwriting
We want children to write clearly, accurately and coherently and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in school. Furthermore, we recognise that handwriting is part of our daily lives and is an important part in allowing us to communicate effectively. Therefore, we encourage our children to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a good, joined, handwriting.
Implementation
The curriculum has been designed to ensure that children are given systematic and frequent planned opportunities to enhance their composition of key text types. Each unit teaches in the same format - Immerse - Analyse - Plan - Write.
In EYFS, we provide children with a range of experiences, across the curriculum. Practitioners use incidental observations and feed forward planning in order to promote emergent and developing writing, either through continuous curriculum or discrete teaching sessions
In KS1, we continue to enhance continuous provision, developing the physical skill needed for handwriting and the oral competency required to organise their ideas in writing. Transition is planned carefully in order to close historical gaps that emerge in speech and language and physical development and so may hinder progress, in writing, of the bottom 20%.
In KS2, we teach shared writing, through formal modelling of the writing process, at least three times a week, both in discrete literacy lessons and across the curriculum, for a variety of purposes. The use of sub-conscious voice, throughout this scaffolded writing allows children to develop a ‘talk for writing’ as they begin to draft their work. Knowledge about how grammar and punctuation structures language, and enables a writer to create a desired tone, allows children to develop a metalanguage and thus transform sentences in order to meet the criteria of a specific style of writing.
Writing is always displayed as a process and children are given the tools for writing on working walls, displayed in each class; these contain cues about grammar, spelling, purpose and organisation and composition and effect of identified genres.
Spelling is taught systematically to ensure that children understand the link between phonics teaching and phonically plausible spellings. As children move into Y2 and KS2, sight words are spelt with increasing accuracy and there is an increasing focus on word origin and etymology to support spelling of polysyllabic words. In KS2 the Spelling Shed spelling scheme is used to ensure a consistent and progressive approach to spelling which meets the requirements of the National Curriculum.
Writing is always taught within meaningful contexts and usually follows oracy activities and rehearsal including drama, debate or reciprocal reading activities. Often, this leads to a variety of word, sentence and whole text activities so that children shape the language and structure that they need for writing.
Impact
On-going formative assessment takes place within each writing session and, against layered success criteria children can assess their own work. Children develop independence and use ‘green pen edit’ times to make corrections, sometimes from additional scaffolds provided to enhance or reinforce their learning and there is regular opportunity to do this. Outcomes are fed forward into teacher intervention and subsequent planning to ensure gaps in knowledge are closed and progress is not limited.
Outcomes from on-going assessment from independent writing are used to identify gaps in knowledge and will inform future planning. Pupil progress will also identify precise actions and objectives for targeted focus children, including the lowest 20% who are not likely to meet end of year expectations and/or not making expected progress.
We recognise that quality first teaching in writing is the essential first step in improving outcomes for all children. With this in mind, we ensure that teachers and teaching assistants are kept up to date on the latest initiatives and news. This is through continuous professional development by outside providers and within school (such as local authority networks and TA training). In response to monitoring, evaluation and review outcomes, weaker areas in staff subject knowledge and pedagogy are continually developed.