Writing

INTENT

We firmly believe that developing confident readers will also develop competent writers. Our aim is to ensure that pupils write clearly, accurately and coherently; write in different styles and for different purposes and audiences; develop a wide vocabulary and a solid understanding of the grammar rules and terminology appropriate for their age group. Our curriculum has also been designed to ensure that pupils are able to express themselves creatively and to communicate effectively with others.

IMPLEMENTATION

Writing is an important part of our curriculum and is an integral part of all of our lessons. At STJHN we teach writing through:

Ensuring writing is purposeful: Each writing unit is planned in accordance with the national curriculum objectives, whilst considering the purpose of writing. Where possible, writing units may be linked to the topic or class book, so that children can benefit from the links and deepen their understanding. Where possible, ICT will be used, to improve children’s communication skills and to give a different platform to present / perform their work. Writing is taught through a combination of modelled writing, shared writing, and independent practice. The English writing genre plan ensures that students are exposed to different genres and purposes for writing, with consolidation opportunities for newly introduced genres in every year group.

Hot Tasks: Each unit of work should be planned with a Hot Task already in mind and skills to be carefully selected to appropriately ‘feed’ into the forthcoming Hot Task. The Hot Task should also be introduced at the start of the unit to the children. This will help with the application of skills. There is a strong focus on drafting, editing, and redrafting work, with the use of success criteria to guide student progress. At the end of each writing sequence, children use what they have learnt to produce a polished piece of writing in their English book. Regular feedback is provided to support and challenge students. Grammar and punctuation rules are taught both discretely and as part of English sequences of work to fit to the writing genre. In the long-term plan, teachers carefully match the national curriculum objectives to writing genres, to ensure that new terminology taught, can be applied in context. Children are provided with opportunity to both practise and apply the taught skill.

Handwriting: The Letterjoin scheme is followed from EYFS up to Year 6. When children reach Year 2, they are taught to use cursive handwriting. Pupils practise handwriting books to help develop appropriate style, space and sizing.

IMPACT

Attainment in writing, including handwriting, is measured at the end of each produced ‘Hot Task’. Progress in writing is tracked electronically using statements which have been taken from the National Curriculum. For those children who have yet to access the Year 1 statements, pre-key stage statements are used. Twice-yearly formal assessment periods for Year groups 1-5. The use of previous SATs papers for year 6 to measure attainment against national standardised scores. 

Termly moderations take place, to quality assure judgements made. These are either in house, or as part of a cluster of local schools.

End of Key Stage writing: teachers will assess a selection of pieces of writing in Year 6, using this to inform reported Teacher assessment judgements. Exemplification materials are used to support judgements made. Teachers attend Local Authority meetings to aid them in assessing writing