Writing

At St Helen’s Primary Academy, we teach English using quality age appropriate texts. Pupils should make connections between reading and writing and be provided with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed throughout their time in the academy as well as a 21st century society. 

The units of work emerse children in experience days to develop their awareness, vocabulary and knowledge to give them enough understanding to apply to fiction and non-fiction writing. Pupils will work through a unit of work through a 7 part structure of immerse, analyse, instruct, plan, write, edit and review detailed further below. 

We know the importance of teaching English well, so that children have a command of the language that they will need to live a fulfilled and successful life. As fluent and engaged readers, effective verbal communicators and writers with a wide vocabulary and a command of grammar our children will leave, at the end of year 6, more likely to become responsible, happy and financially secure adults. 

• Teachers teach writing focused lessons 5 x per week

• Lessons cover the national curriculum objectives 

• The ARK Curriculum drives the content, principles and delivery of the curriculum

• Our reading and writing curriculum are aligned and use the same text for an in-depth study

• Handwriting and spelling lessons (related to age related expectations) to be delivered daily

• Classrooms will be vocabulary rich and will have an English working wall to support the delivery

•  Spelling, punctuation and grammar is taught immersed throughout the units but taught discreetly to focus on the teaching of the skill

• Working walls will support learning and have high quality modelled texts created through a joint approach 

• Children’s writing is celebrated through recognition of contributions 

• Discrete handwriting session will be taught using Letterjoin 

• Pupils will be exposed to writing enrichment days and is embedded in all areas of the curriculum

We aim for all children to feel confident in writing. Through the principles of  The Ark Curriculum, children will become fluent writers and this will be evidenced through written work. Teachers will challenge misconceptions both verbally and written through live marking. 

Children’s progress in lessons will be assessed against learning objectives and a success criteria, so both children and teacher can assess progress in individual lessons within the unit. 

An independent piece of writing will be done at the end of each writing unit, that will be assessed against age related grids.

Micro level - Formative assessment (Task by task) 

Ongoing AFL during lessons through: 

- Eliciting information through questioning and dialogue 

- Providing feedback with clear direction on how to improve 

- Misconceptions will be challenged both verbally and through interactive marking

- Helping children to understand how to become successful (criteria) 

Meso level - Lesson by lesson assessment 

- Knowledge checks at the start of the lesson to ensure children are remembering more content and vocabulary over time

- ‘Do now’ retrieval quizzes at the start of every lesson to recall key content and vocabulary from previous lesson

Macro level - End of unit

Writing assessments are conducted at the end of a unit where an independent piece of writing is produced

Mega level - Standardised test 

Standardised writing moderation - Y2 and Y6

Inta-trust writing moderation Y1 - Y6 to validate judgements