Writing

At Chennestone Primary School we believe that writing is a key skill for life both inside and out of education and that is why it features across all the subjects taught across our school. Our aim is to provide children with key transferrable writing skills to build on year on year, that can be used throughout each phase of their education and prepare them for secondary school.

Teaching children to write for a range of purposes and audiences can be very exciting, especially here at Chennestone where we provide children with a range of engaging hooks to capture their imagination! We aim to provide the children with varied reasons for writing and believe that this not only produces higher quality writing, but allows our learners to apply their skills to a range of different contexts.  Writing across all subject areas will prepare our children for high school and the more in-depth approach to analysing, planning and innovating their writing.

Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions (age appropriate) all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful in their writing. Our aim is 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 Chennestone, our approach is structured and progressive.  Children acquire the building blocks of writing early on, and through our progression of teaching (transcription and composition) they develop to be fluent writers.  We want children to make good progress based on their own starting points.

Implementation

At Chennestone, we feel that age appropriate, challenging and motivational learning varies as children move through the curriculum.

We ensure that at each age:

• Writing is accessible to allow ALL pupils, including those with SEND, to access the full curriculum offer
• Leaders ensure that ALL staff receive focused and highly effective professional development. They provide effective, regular training programmes for all teaching staff. Teacher’s pedagogical knowledge develops over time because of this.
• There is a rigorous sequential approach to the writing curriculum to ensure development of fluency, confidence and enjoyment
• The teaching of vocabulary, grammar and cohesion (including archaic language) are important.
• Leaders focus on improving teacher’s understanding and appropriate use of assessment and moderation.
• Writing is planned and builds on prior learning and introduces new knowledge ensuring the curriculum is covered in each year group.

We use elements of the Talk for Writing approach. It emphasizes oral language development as a foundation for writing. Children engage in discussions, storytelling, and drama activities to internalise the structure and language of different text types. This approach helps children understand how stories and texts are constructed before they start writing. Each writing unit uses a book as a stimulus for discussion and immersion and starts with a hook. In Year 6, we build on this to include short film units or units based on foundation subjects and prior learning.

Then, each year group uses the following structure (please see below for a more thorough breakdown for each of these areas):

• Reading and engagement
• Planning and structuring/toolkit
• Writing and editing

EYFS 

We inspire our youngest children to write and see themselves as writers.  Every child’s journey is personal.  Writing begins in oracy, physical development and building confidence. 

Physical development:  this includes activities to develop core strength, balance, muscle tone to support gross and fine motor skills.  Examples for the latter are: manipulating small and loose parts, gripping and squeezing using tweezers, lacing and threading, cutting and snipping.  Gross motor skills are developed through PE and other whole body activities (especially through the outdoor continuous provision).

Mark making is a fundamental early step.  We encourage a love for this.  Marks are valued to build confidence, developing the first steps in mark-making for meaning.  Children share their marks and ideas, and we provide opportunities for children to practice making a range of movements in big, open spaces using a range of media.

Talk and writing are valued, with explicit, adult-led talk about writing. Adults also model language and vocabulary, using prompts such as puppets, objects, the natural environment which in turn stimulates spoken language in the children.  Environmental print is used, and words in stories /books are referred to, in order to make the link between spoken and written words.  Opportunities for writing are planned for in our adult led and continuous provision activities, for example shopping lists, recipes, letters, story-characters. 

The link with reading and enjoyment of texts is strong, and children are immersed in stories through story time, book talk, drama, role-play, text mapping and re-telling, thus providing inspiration and encouragement to write and share ideas.  High quality texts are chosen to inspire this learning.

Pupils acquire their phonological awareness through our phonics based reading scheme, Talk for Writing.  Children write the sounds they have been learning and apply their knowledge.  Children write every day, rehearsing out lout, then spelling the words using the sounds and ‘harder to learn and spell’ words that they know.  As appropriate, children practice and apply spelling and grammar rules to their writing.

KS1 & KS2

Children work on 3 week writing cycles, looking at the features of texts, learning how to edit and improve them, before writing their own. These stages of the writing cycle are known as imitation, innovation, and independence. As part of this, we use text interrogation to identify the key grammatical features in the texts as well as the underlying structures. These are then used to edit and improve as part of the writing cycle. Children use a range of box up plans, text maps and timelines to help support and improve their writing.

Writing Lessons: 

Writing is taught through the use of high-quality texts and we encourage our children to use and develop inference skills, build on vocabulary, have exposure to a range of punctuation and grammar and use the opportunity to engage with and ‘lose themselves’ in these exciting age-appropriate texts.  

English teaching is based around themes or topics that children can relate to, this ensures that children are given a real-life purpose for writing, with the aim of developing enjoyment of writing.

Children are taught to explore the writing structures and features of different genres, identify the purpose and audience, plan and write an initial piece of writing with a clear context and purpose before going on to evaluate the effectiveness of writing by editing and redrafting. Teachers model the editing process as well providing good quality (written and verbal) feedback. Children are given the time to edit and redraft their work and pupil conferencing allows for verbal discussions on how to further improve writing.

Every classroom has an ‘English working wall’ these are updated regularly and are designed to support and encourage independent writing. English working walls are also used to promote and celebrate a love of writing.

Teachers provide children with the opportunities to embed their skills in writing through additional cross-curricular writing opportunities.

Short Burst, Shared and Guided Writing are used as strategies regularly within writing lessons, supporting pupils in further models of the text type they are learning.

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling: As children progress through Chennestone, they receive focused instruction on grammar and language skills. This includes learning about sentence structure, verb tense, word choice, and stylistic elements to enhance the quality of their writing. 

At Chennestone, the children are taught phonics in Foundation Stage, KS1 and in some cases lower KS2. Children throughout school are also taught spelling patterns that they practise through daily spelling activities and games within class.  

Spellings are taught discretely and daily, with opportunity for spaced retrieval practice to embed words. Spelling lessons incorporate a variety of techniques to embed rules and irregularities in spelling, and support children in understanding relationships between meaning and spelling. We study the structure and origin of words (Morphology and Etymology). This is achieved through tasks such as sound sorting, sound buttons, discussions and outdoor learning.

In every classroom in all year groups, you will find our 'Star Words' on display and in books.  These are linked to all subjects including, Science, history, geography, English and Maths. The reading, meaning and context of these words are directly taught to the children and they are actively encouraged to use and apply them in their learning.

Assessments: Writing is continuously assessed by class teacher and as a result, planning and teaching changes to meet the needs of the children and should be edited to enable continuous progression. A formal assessment of writing is made at the end of each term based on age related expectations.

Children are assessed on a wide range of genres (both fiction and non-fiction) throughout the year. It is essential that all children have a balance of both fiction and non-fiction and the genres in these.