English - Writing

Intent

At Chaddleworth and Shefford Schools we believe that all our pupils should be able to communicate effectively through their writing and that is a tool for life. We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. We want them to write clearly, accurately, coherently, and creatively, adapting their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences.

Oracy is prioritised in our writing curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum. Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful in their writing. Our mastery approach for writing aims for all learners to achieve their full potential in writing and we are committed to providing the scaffolds and challenge needed in order for our children to achieve this.

At Chaddleworth and Shefford Schools we aim to:

• Create confident writers who develop endurance and stamina for writing throughout school and are able to write at length.

• For all of our children to be independent writers, building on a range of skills as they work through each journey of writing.

• Use high quality texts that model excellent writing practises across a broad range of genres.

• Develop a secure understanding of the purpose of a text type, the purpose and intended impact of writing skills/tools and the ability to carefully select vocabulary with focus on the desired effect on the readers’ thoughts and feelings so that the impact of their writing is positive.

• Ensure that all pupils know how to plan, practise, evaluate their work as well as carry out an effective edit and improvement process using feedback from the teacher.

• Challenge and encourage our children to take risks and view mistakes as a positive part of the learning process.

• Celebrate writing at each stage through the learning process to encourage children to take pride in their work.

• Provide a balanced and broad curriculum, which encompasses writing practice and equips children with the skills and knowledge of writing processes including handwriting, spelling, grammar, widening vocabulary and writing for different styles.

• Encourage our children to high expectations of themselves where they take pride in all aspects of learning and in everything they produce.

Implementation:

Teaching Time

To provide adequate time for developing writing skills each class teacher will provide a daily writing lesson.  This may vary in length but will usually last for about 50 to 60 minutes.  Spelling sessions are also timetabled daily so that pupils are supported in remembering spelling patterns and rules. Daily opportunities for handwriting practice are timetabled up to Year 2 and beyond for those children who continue to benefit from it. Grammar is taught explicitly and those skills are then applied in writing opportunities. The children are taught to understand the conventions of writing and manipulate language to create effects for the reader. Links, where possible, will also be made to writing within other subjects so pupils can develop and apply their written skills.

We believe that all pupils should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing. From EYFS, children will learn the cursive script and will present their writing in variety of ways and write for a variety of genres for both English lessons and the wider curriculum. Through the Talk4Writing process, children will acquire and learn the skills to plan, draft and refine their written work over time and are encouraged to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing.

Teachers demonstrate high quality modelling within each Writing lesson and encourage children to include key vocabulary, structure their work appropriately into coherent paragraphs and use the grammatical skills and punctuation taught at their year group level.

Planning:

Lessons are planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before. Teachers use the objectives taken from the National Curriculum statutory guidelines and follow Termly Overview and Schemes of work to support their planning.

Progression maps are based on the National Curriculum, using section headings:

·       Text structure

·       Sentence construction

·       Word structure

·       Punctuation

·       Terminology

Our pupils are exposed to high quality texts and a wide variety of genres in which to apply their writing skills.

Writing across the curriculum

Writing contributes to most subjects within the primary curriculum and opportunities will be sought to give writing experiences out of a wide range of activities. This will allow children to use and apply writing skills in real contexts. These opportunities will be identified in all appropriate schemes of work but other opportunities will be taken as and when they occur.

Resources

Every classroom must use a writing working wall which acts as a writing toolkit, including examples of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary used in a unit of work.

Information and Communication Technology

ICT will be used in various ways to support teaching and motivate children’s learning for example using applications to publish work effectively.

Assessment

Formative assessment and summative assessment:

• Formative (Assessment FOR learning - AfL): ongoing assessment of how children are learning, undertaken by the teacher during the course of the learning process.

• Summative (Assessment OF learning): This is the assessment of learning that takes place after the learning process, in order to measure how effective the learning has been.

These assessments will be used to inform teaching in a continuous cycle of planning, teaching and assessing.

Ongoing assessments, AFL and mini assessments, will be an informal part of every lesson to check pupils’ understanding and give information, which will help the teacher to adjust day-to-day lesson plans.

At data entry points throughout the year children’s work will be assessed and a judgement of their progress and attainment will be made in line with ARE. The outcomes will be recorded on a school mark sheet, discussed within Pupil Progress Meetings and analysed for areas of development. Where possible these judgements will be moderated with colleagues and/or the EnCo.

Teachers will refer to end of year objectives to help inform them of a Teacher Assessment level, using evidence from class work across the curriculum to guide them. Where possible these judgements will be moderated within the school. Accurate information will then be reported to parents and the child’s next teacher and the LA. Analysis of progress will be regularly carried out by the EnCo throughout the year. Where children appear to be making little progress the EnCo will discuss interventions to support the teacher that will help the children to accelerate their learning.

Marking

See the Feedback, Marking and Assessment Policy

Impact:

At Chaddleworth and Shefford Schools we expect that by the end of Year 6 pupils will:

• write clearly, accurately, coherently, and creatively

• adapt their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences

Outcomes:

At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). Children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention.

Pupil voice:

Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their writing and speak about how they love learning writing. They can articulate the context in which writing is being taught using accurate vocabulary.

Monitoring of Writing

In order to achieve this the Writing co-ordinator and the Senior Leadership Team take responsibility for the monitoring of the Writing curriculum and the standards achieved by the children. The Writing co-ordinator will monitor for appropriate pitch and progression every term. This monitoring takes the form of one or more of the following:

1. lesson observations and feedback

2. learning walks and pupil voice conversations

3. planning scrutiny followed by support where necessary

4. book looks on a frequent basis

5. termly data analysis