Writing
We have high expectations for handwriting and presentation across the school and we teach the children to use a cursive script from Year 1 upwards.
Our writing curriculum has been developed with fine attention to ensure that as children progress through the school, their skills develop in both an age and stage appropriate way. Each unit of writing develops progressively within a 3-stage writing process.
Children first enter the Stimulate and Generate phase of writing. Here the unit begins with a rich text stimulus and provides opportunities for children to explore spoken language, word level work and develop cultural capital (through visitors, trips, images, props). The aim of this initial phase is to immerse our children in the vocabulary that they will need to use to write effectively. The next stage of the learning journey is the Capture, Sift and Sort phase. Here children explore the skills needed for the final outcome (planning; exploring genre and form; embedded grammar, punctuation and spelling). In addition, the children complete apprentice writes which provide contextualised opportunities to practise the writing skills that they will use in their final piece. The final stage of the writing process is the Create, Refine and Evaluate phase where teachers continue to teach skills and behaviours of a writer and children create a written outcome for a known audience. This is the phase of writing where children proof-read and edit their work: our learners are challenged and encouraged to take risks and view mistakes as another part of the learning process. The learning journey finishes with opportunities for children to publish their work ready for celebration and/or presentation.
Classroom walls are an important part of the learning process as they provide children with a form of continuous provision that they can refer to throughout the journey. These should detail the purpose for writing, vocabulary, skills being taught and modelled examples where appropriate. During the process, the working walls are referred to regularly and often. Key parts of the displays remain after a learning journey so children are reminded and encouraged to use and apply these skills in other pieces of writing.
GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION
The explicit teaching of Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation is essential to the development of children’s speech and writing. Children from Year 1 to 6 learn key grammar and punctuation concepts in the context of writing as part of 'Capture, Sift and Sort' phase of writing. In addition to this, grammar is taught discretely as part of a reading carousel. Having a firm understanding of these concepts, allows children to be confident in building and manipulating interesting and varied sentences. Furthermore, they can then discuss and analyse their own language and grammar choices, as well as those of others, using the appropriate terminology. While this knowledge prepares the children for the end of KS2 SATs tests, it also helps them to write with improved accuracy and confidence and gives them choice as a writer.
SPELLING
In KS1, Year 1 continue to follow the Read, Write Inc phonics programme, whilst Year 2 children initially follow this scheme, and then progress to learning simple spelling rules and patterns from the National Curriculum. In KS2, Spelling is taught daily through short interactive games and investigations of spelling rules and patterns. This allows children to embed their newly-learned skills by practising their application.
Each week, children will be taught a spelling rule/pattern based on the curriculum. Spellings will go home based on the rule, along with words from the Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 curriculum words.
WRITING CURRICULUM DOCUMENTS