Wales Primary SchoolWriting
Curriculum Drivers
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Writing Intent, Implementation and Impact
Intent:
Writing has an important place in education and in society. It is an essential skill and the ability to write with confidence and accuracy is a tool which will support a child through life. At Wales Primary School, it is our intent that our children understand the social functions of writing in order to use different genres of writing appropriately by considering its purpose and matching it to its audience. Furthermore, it is our intent that every child develops a progressive understanding of grammatical conventions, the way in which punctuation aids understanding and how to apply spelling rules. It is also our intent that all children have a joined, legible and increasingly efficient handwriting style. Through our teaching of writing, we intend to impart pupils with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need in order for all pupils to reach their potential as individuals.
At Wales Primary School, children will learn to be confident and creative writers through an engaging and knowledge-rich curriculum. Accurate use of grammar and judicious use of language will be evident in writing that has a clear and authentic purpose and audience. Teachers will expertly model writing and provide children with the skills to improve their own writing and effectively. Wider reading will build on the children’s knowledge and help them to model how to write effectively.
Implementation:
At Wales Primary School, our writing curriculum is based largely around narrative texts. Reading narrative texts enables children to learn about plots, themes and stylistic devices building tier 2 and 3 vocabulary. It also builds grammar knowledge and gives pupils a subject matter for writing once a narrative is embedded. Using a variety of drama strategies and groupings for talk, children have numerous opportunities to orally explore a text type before they start to write.
Writing is taught explicitly in daily English lessons and skills learnt are regularly reinforced within lessons across the curriculum. Using a combination of novels, film clips, poetry and relevant real life events, learning is fun, meaningful and memorable. Upon studying different high quality texts, pupils immerse themselves in the language and structure of these to create their own toolkit – an aid to writing. This ensures that language patterns, punctuation and key phrases are internalised by the children so that they become confident and competent writers. Teachers model the process of writing so that children understand the thought process behind it. Children are given opportunities to participate in a shared write as a class/group, paired writing as well as individual writing. Repeated practice of writing genres ensures that pupils leave Wales Primary School capable of writing for different audiences and purposes.
Early writing and phonics are taught following the Little Wandle Programme in FS1 and Y1.
Spelling is taught outside of English lessons and children understand the importance of learning spellings in a memorable and interesting way. A range of strategies are used to ensure personable learning which supports pupils in becoming competent lifelong spellers. Accurate spelling is expected in all writing across the curriculum and children are taught and given time to edit their spellings and recognise their own errors.
The teaching of grammar and standard English is an integral part of every writing lesson and across the whole curriculum. Using the Grammar progression document, key grammar and Standard English skills are taught progressively and systematically throughout the school linking in to the genre of writing being taught.
Impact
From the regular monitoring of plans, books and pupil interviews, it is clear that writing is taught in a systematic and progressive way; that prior teaching and learning is considered, and that learning is memorable. Children enjoy talking about their writing – about its construction, purpose and effect on the reader. As a result of the explicit teaching of writing skills, cross-curricular writing is of the same standard as writing completed in English lessons. All writing is planned with a clear intention and audience and editing ensures that writing is presented at its best. Children achieve well at the end of both Key stages and leave Wales Primary School with a secure understanding of writing and are well prepared to meet the needs of a challenging secondary curriculum and the expectations of writing across all subjects. Teachers use the year group key objective trackers to monitor progress and assess at key points throughout the school year. The English team monitor the teaching and learning of writing frequently to ensure that standards are consistent across school and to identify areas for ongoing CPD.
Spellings
Click on the link below for each year group's spelling overview. They detail the breakdown of lists of words for each week which the children will learn and assessed on weekly. The words are a mixture of the statutory spellings along with words linked to phonics and spelling patterns taught each week.
Spelling Lists - click on the links below
To find out more information about the National Curriculum for this subject & others, please click here
Books to support our learning in writing
The Word Collector
by Peter H. Reynolds
From a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator comes an inspiring picture book about the power of words.
Some people collect stamps. Some people collect coins. Some people collect art. And Jerome? Jerome collected words.
Write Like a Ninja: An essential toolkit for every young writer: 1
This neat little book will save hours of time spent tracking down resources and finding examples for children, and empower them to write independently using rich vocabulary, varied language and exciting sentences – all leading to becoming top writing ninjas!
Writing at home
Want to continue your Writing learning at home?
Have a look at some of these ideas:
Dictionary flick
Ask children to flick through the dictionary and let their fingers fall randomly on three words. Can you make a sentence or a story that includes each of the words?
Time travellers
Ask children to imagine that they have travelled back in time. Write a postcard or a letter to a friend explaining what it's like, who they've met, what they've seen, etc.
Explain a story in 10 words
Challenge children to condense the plot of a story into just ten words.
Write a collaborative story
Put children into pairs or small groups. Challenge them to write a story together by taking it in turns to write a sentence each.
Pathways to Write
We follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme ‘Pathways to Write.’ Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided. Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
You will find the end of year expectations for writing, reading and spoken language for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.