Writing

Staff

Mr A Cornish Writing Leader

At Barton Moss, our Writing curriculum has been developed to address our context and the barriers to learning derived from it. We have a coherent literacy spine from Nursery to Year 6 that reflects these learning barriers and ensures the writing gaps identified are our main priority. Our literacy spine includes a wide range of texts that support a comprehensive range of opportunities for reading and writing.

Writing

Intent

 

Our overall ambition at Barton Moss is for ‘every child literate’, so that each pupil leaves Year 6 able to communicate and express him/herself using written language. To achieve this, our chosen approach for the writing curriculum is through a Literacy spine that links reading into writing with many meaningful connections for the application of these skills across the wider curriculum. We have developed the spine from Nursery to Year 6 to give children experience of many high quality texts with the aim of inspiring them to read and write with enjoyment and purpose. Our spine includes a wide range of texts, such as traditional tales, poetry, biographies, Science-Fiction, and fantasy stories, and systematically develops our children’s vocabulary and experience of genres that they need to study and appreciate as part of National Curriculum English. Through stimulating and enjoyable daily writing lessons, our children learn to spell accurately, write legibly and master the rudiments of grammar. We regularly undertake author studies and welcome visiting writers (novelists, journalists, poets) to the school who help to inspire all of our children to aim high.

Purpose and Aims

 

English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English at Barton Moss will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development.

The overarching aim for English in our curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. Our writing curriculum aims to ensure that:

 

By the end of Reception, all pupils will be able to:

• Use their bodies through the Squiggles scheme help the children develop the motions they need to learn to form letters first through large dance movements and then onto paper
• Use Dough disco as a programme to build up finger muscle control which will enable the child to manipulate their fingers
• Use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds.
• Write some irregular common words
• Write simple phrases which can be read by themselves and others
• Form letters accurately
• Develop their hand/pencil grip so it can help them be transcribe letters and words.

 

By the end of KS1:

• Pupils will be able to write down their ideas with a reasonable degree of accuracy and with good sentence punctuation.
• Pupils will be beginning to understand how writing can be different from speech.
• Pupils’ spelling of common words will be correct, including common exception words and other words that they have learnt.
• Pupils will spell words as accurately as possible using their phonic knowledge and other knowledge of spelling.
• Pupils will use discussion to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas.
• Pupils will be able to write letters correctly and begin to join.

 

By the end of LKS2;

• Pupils will be able to draw upon and build on basic skills from Nursery, Reception and KS1
• Pupils should be able to write down their ideas quickly. Their grammar and punctuation will be broadly accurate.
• Pupils will be able to display correct spelling of most words taught so far and should be accurate and they should be able to spell words that they have not yet been taught by using what they have learnt about how spelling works in English.
• Pupils will be able to demonstrate an enjoyment and understanding of language, especially vocabulary, to support their reading and writing. Pupils’ knowledge of language, gained from stories, plays, poetry, non-fiction and textbooks, will support their increasing fluency as readers, their facility as writers, and their comprehension.
• Pupils will be able to enhance the effectiveness of their writing as well as their competence by editing and proposing changes to vocabulary, spelling and grammar.
• Pupils will be able to use the approach of Thinking side and writing side to aid their writing development.

 

By the end of UKS2 pupils will be able to:

• Write with sufficiently fluency and effort for them to manage the general demands of the curriculum in year 7 across all subjects and not just in English.
• Reflect their understanding of the audience for and purpose of their writing by selecting appropriate vocabulary and grammar.
• Consciously control sentence structure in their writing and understand why sentences are constructed as they are.
• Understand nuances in vocabulary choice and age-appropriate, academic vocabulary. This involves consolidation, practice and discussion of language.
• Discuss what they are learning and to develop their wider skills in spoken language form part of this programme of study.
• Display a confidence, enjoyment and mastery of language which is extended through public speaking, performance and debate.

Non Negotiables

 

• Writing book for all children Year N – 6 Blue A4.
• Phonics A4 blue book for children to practice writing in phonics from RWI Set 1 Sounds Group A in Reception .
• SPAG book blue A5 for all children Year 2 – 6 once passed the phonics.
• Writing is an integral part of all subjects and evident in all subjects at least once across a half term.
• Independent writing to be assessed once every half term against the set criteria.

Implementation

 

Early Writing

In Nursery, teachers will plan dough disco and squiggles sessions that develop the children’s physical development and mark making as well as letters and numbers and shapes. Teachers in Reception and KS1 will follow the systematic phonic scheme Read Write Inc. to teach children their phoneme – grapheme correspondence, as well as the children’s blending skills. The transition of hold a sentence will be used in Reception and Year 1 Autumn term and move into fluency of writing. The children will be taught in small groups of similar phonic decoding abilities daily and each phonic session will follow ‘revise, teach, practice, apply; structure. Children will take home decodable books that match the phonics they are doing in class, providing them with the opportunity to practice what they have learnt in school.

Children in Early Years and KS1 often take part a ‘Talk for Writing’ approach, which encompasses children drawing on known experiences and retrieval skills, the development of spoken language and preparing sentences verbally before writing, planning through images and actions and producing written narratives as a intended outcome. The RWI strands of ‘hold a sentence’, ‘build a sentence’ and ‘using Fred fingers to spell’ are also reflected within whole class English lessons as well as during wider curriculum subjects.

 

Our Writing Construct – KS1-KS2

Teachers will use the school’s writing construct to plan meaningful writing sessions that will increase the children’s love and consolidation of writing skills linked to our literacy spine.

The construct is designed to support children’s link between reading and writing, exposing them to a variety of genres, where core writing skills can be explored, analysed and used to build children’s knowledge of writing in a meaningful way.

Teachers will plan a series of meaningful sessions that will show a cumulative progressive scheme. Children are taken on a writing journey using books from their year groups Literature Spine, which have been carefully selected to interest and challenge pupils and are linked to the schools termly core question, to help support learning and application across the curriculum. Grammar and Punctuation National Curriculum objectives are weaved into English learning journeys, giving them a real purpose and context for learning.

To allow children to write for a real purpose and audience, learning journeys are carefully planned from exploration of texts and writing styles to application of their learning.

During English learning journeys pupils:

• Read WAGOLL examples linking to the curriculum objectives for each year group along with the genre they are studying
• Have access to a range of reading materials linked to the genre or curriculum area they are writing about (differentiated to meet the needs of all learners)
• Using PATO to support children’s understanding of purpose, audience, text and organisation
• Plan, write, edit and improve their own writing
• Study and write a range of different genres
• Perform their writing to a range of different audiences
• Develop their spelling, grammar and punctuation through planned lessons, linking where possible to the book or text they are studying in detail.
• Develop their proof reading and editing skills through one to one writing support

Learning journeys are assessed against The Writing Moderation Toolkit, that supports are related expectations for each year group and each term. Teachers use the exemplars in the toolkit to support teaching and learning of writing and to ensure application of core composition, grammar and punctuation and spelling are applied. Over the course of the year, teachers will then revise previously taught concepts, and teach and apply new learning to the writing journey. 

Through reading and writing children from KS1 to KS2 will be able to close gaps and embed previous term/year group skills to demonstrate the build-up of writing application across the course of each week, each term and each year.

 

Spelling and Handwriting

At Barton Moss, we follow the RWI phonics and Spelling Shed to support children’s knowledge and formation of letters and words and their meanings. These skills are embedded from the very beginning of a child’s reading and writing journey ensuring a consistent approach to spelling. Children in Reception and KS1 are encouraged to read and spell the common exception words for their year group and teachers use the Spelling Shed scheme to plan teaching and learning of words throughout the school. Regular monitoring of the spelling and reading of words for each year group takes place and children can practise these at home with their parents using the Spelling Shed website. Children in Y1-6 have a have a daily timetabled spelling slot. Spellings are recorded in a spelling book and can be recorded using the Spelling Shed Hive Game tool.

Children are taught the cursive handwriting style of joined up handwriting in which the letters are connected to help children write faster. This takes place, at the latest, from Year 3, when prior learning of letter formations are completed through the RWI scheme.

Impact

 

• Book monitoring will show that all teaching and learning outcomes are at a 100 percent good standard or better.
• Book monitoring will show that teaching and learning outcomes are at 50 percent outstanding and that children are engrossed in the subject of Writing, and know and remember more linked directly to the intent.
• All monitoring shows that theory and intent is being implemented as planned by the subject leader and the writing construct is clearly having an impact on progress.
• Pupil voice and surveys show that there is an increase in the number of pupils engaged in writing.
• Monitoring and pupil voice will show that staff know which children are engaged in the writing process.
• Book looks and Pupil voice inform intended outcomes.
• By the end of Reception at least 77% will achieve the physical development and writing.
• At least 82% will pass the phonic screening test in Y1.
• At least 91% will pass the phonics screening test in Y2.
• By the end of KS1 and Year 3 at least 70% of children will be age related with at least 6% achieving above (Year 2021/2022).
• By the end of Year 4/5/6 at least 75% of children will be age related with 15% achieving above (Year 2021/2022).

Downloads

Progression of Skills and Knowledge of Writing  

Writing Policy