Writing

Intent

At Saviour, we strive to create a love of literacy in our children, helping them understand the purpose of writing and the positive impacts it can have on both their own and other's lives.

Upon leaving our school, we want our children to have a strong awareness of how they can manipulate and adapt the style in which they write, dependent on the purpose of the text. This will include using a wide range of techniques, such as:

• Using the texts they read as a model for what they write by analysing structure, vocabulary and form to influence their own writing.
• Drawing upon a rich and varied vocabulary as well as understanding how different words are better suited to different genres and text types.
• Creating texts with a clear, organised and purposeful structure.
• Using increasingly accurate transcriptional skills to ensure that spelling and grammar is the highest standard possible.
• Developing their own style of legible, joined handwriting.
• Editing their work to maximise the impact it has upon the reader.

Our children will be given a wide variety of opportunities to write, with a range of purposes so they can explore a variety of genres. Teaching sequences will be clear to our children and will highlight the importance of how we must use reading to inform our writing. Children will practice different elements of writing in discrete sessions and will then be encouraged to apply their learning when writing longer pieces of text.

To support the learning that our children do in their English sessions, teachers will plan sessions in as many curriculum areas as possible where children have the opportunity to write. We believe this will assist them in having a greater awareness of the different purposes for writing as they are able to immerse themselves in the topics they are writing about.

Implementation

Teachers have been trained in using a book-led curriculum to maximise the progress children make in writing. Each half-term, children have a class text that will be used as a stimulus for the activities in their English lessons. In each of these half-terms, children will produce a thorough narrative text (developed in the first three-week block) and a non-fiction text (developed in the second three-week block). In the terms that are longer than six weeks, children will engage in a 'Poetry week' where they will use different poetic forms as a stimulus for their own creations. The three-week fiction and non-fiction sequences are taught as follows:

• The first week is a 'Reading Week' where children will explore their class text together, drawing out grammatical structures and new vocabulary. In that week, children do a range of activities to show whether they have understood the text, such as short writing tasks, analysis of the texts and answering comprehension questions.
• We call the second week a 'Gathering Content' week. In this week, children are getting prepared for their writing that will take place in the third week. They will plan a text that is structurally similar to the exemplar they explored in the Reading Week. Throughout the week, the class will work on elements of writing that will help improve their final outcome. This may be grammatical elements, transcriptional elements or considering how they can adapt their style to suit the purpose of the writing.
• Finally, in the third week, we have our 'Writing Week' where children will create their extended pieces of work. They will have direct teaching on how they are able to convert a plan into a piece of writing, as well as the importance of drafting, editing and improving their work. Children have opportunities to assess their work individually, with their peers and with adults. They are taught techniques to alter and improve their work to increase its effectiveness.

Children will also partake in at least two handwriting sessions per week. In these sessions, children will explore either individual letters or sequences of letters which are regularly found together. They will practice these forms and then they will progress to using them in words and finally in sentences.

We believe that high-quality writing can be produced across the curriculum. Every half-term, we expect to produce two pieces of extended writing in our foundation subjects. We will often write using genres that have been taught in English the previous term so as to assess our pupils' retention of the specific style and structure required.

Impact

We believe our clear writing sequences lead to high levels of progress amongst our children. Everytime the children produce a piece of work, teachers will evaluate it alongside the children, discussing its effectiveness. The formative assessments that teachers make when analysing the children's work are essential to our overall assessments, as well as leading into their future planning.

At the end of both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, teachers submit their statutory assessments based on the frameworks produced by the government. The school's senior leadership will support the Year 2 and Year 6 teachers in making these assessments. To monitor progress through the school, teachers of other year groups will produce termly assessments based on frameworks that have been produced for each year group. These objectives have been created using the end of Key Stage frameworks as well as the National Curriculum objectives for each year group within school.