English at Earlsmead

Writing

At Earlsmead Primary School, we believe that developing children as writers is so much more than asking them to remember grammatical constructions or tricky spellings. It is a complicated and intricate process – and if we enable a child to become a writer we have given them a voice, supported them to communicate, shared an understanding of the world and their place in it in relation to others and provided them with a skill that is vital for all of their schooling and to their life beyond. Learning to write is a complex process and it is every child’s entitlement.

We believe pupils should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. 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, coherently, and creatively, adapting their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences. Our children will engage in shared and guided writing that highlights our teachers as writers and allows children to be supported to develop their ideas, skills and writing style within the security of their class or a small group.

Our children are encouraged to take pride in the presentation and organisation of their writing. They will have the opportunity to present their writing in a variety of ways and write for a variety of genres for English lessons and across the wider curriculum. They will acquire and learn the skills to plan, draft, review, edit and publish their written work over time. With precise feedback and marking, children are encouraged to develop independence in being able to identify areas for improvement and further develop their writing. It is important for our teachers to validate children’s writing with appropriate response, focusing first on the effect that the writing has on their reader.

In every writer, there is a reader. Give them reading. Let them lift the words off the printed page to enrich their own written work. Louise Johns-Shepherd, Chief Executive, CLPE

To underpin our English lessons we use quality texts from the CLPE Power of Reading. These quality texts are used to support core writing skills aligned to the expectations of the National Curriculum through a combination of approaches and opportunities.

• Shared / modelled writing, as teachers, it is important that we are able to model writing ‘live’, sharing the frustrations and successes involved.

• Daily independent writing

• Writing for different genres and styles

• Writing across a variety of curriculum areas

• Handwriting focus

• Grammar, punctuation and spelling explicitly taught and applied to independent writing

• Planning, drafting, reviewing, editing, up-levelling and publishing

• Whole school writing projects based around a shared quality text

• The Write Stuff

• Having opportunities to see and learn from professional writer’s practice, real life writers can bring a greater depth to learning about authentic writing processes.

Handwriting

It is paramount that children are rigorously taught correct letter formation from the very beginning of their time at our school. During the foundation stage, the children are taught to sit properly in order to have the correct posture for writing, hold a pencil correctly and develop a legible handwriting style in line with the letter formations used in our Little Wandle phonics scheme. Towards the end of KS1, or when children are ready, we follow a carefully selected cursive handwriting scheme. Teachers are expected to model the school’s handwriting style when sharing writing for children to read, when marking children’s work, modelling writing in class and on displays around the school.

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

Grammar and punctuation skills are taught explicitly during writing lessons and the children identify how authors have used them effectively in texts when reading. Grammar and punctuation is planned and taught using the year group expectations from the National Curriculum and children are expected to apply their knowledge in their own writing.

Through exploring spelling patterns and rules, we aim to create confident and proficient spellers using a discrete teaching approach underpinned by Little Wandle phonics.

Children are taught to:

• Spell accurately and identify spelling errors when proofreading

• Recognise and use word origins, families and roots to build their skills

• Use spell check, dictionaries and thesauruses.

Teachers use assessment as an integral part of their daily teaching and learning process and link outcomes to the children’s next steps. Teachers record and track each child’s progress and use this to set future targets. They use a variety of formative assessments and precise and constructive marking and feedback strategies. Teachers have regular opportunities to moderate children’s writing with year group colleagues, across key stages and with other schools within our Network Learning Community.

In addition to this, children also complete

• At least 3 pieces of final draft writing every term

• SPAG.com assessments for KS2 every term

• Ongoing writing assessments following year group and phase specific objectives

Our aspiration is that our children’s writing journey at Earlsmead Primary School secures the knowledge and skills to be able to write successfully for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Clearly planned writing sequences are established and taught across both key stages, enabling our children to become more confident writers and have the ability to plan, draft, review, edit and publish their own work. As our children approach the end of key stage 2 we hope that they have developed their own individual writer’s style, they enjoy sustained writing and can manipulate language, grammar, punctuation and spelling to create effect. As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards also improve and skills taught in the English lesson are transferred into other subjects across the curriculum; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific writing skills and styles.

We believe that publishing their work for an audience gives children a purpose and opportunity to celebrate and share their writing with their readers. Published anthologies of our young writers' work can be found in classrooms and shared across the school.