Writing

Intent

Writing at Fixby Junior and Infant School is underpinned by two central aims: to instil in our pupils an excitement for the creativity of the writing process and to teach them the necessary skills and abilities to become successful, independent writers. Every child will learn to write, and love to write, by being given real and exciting materials to inspire them; and by providing them with opportunities to write for different reasons and in different genres and contexts.

We aim to provide all the children at Fixby Junior and Infant School with support to write using quality first teaching and a clear, well planned progression across all aspects of writing at genre, sentence and word level. We understand that the spoken language, reading and writing are tightly interwoven and therefore, we aim to use excellent reading materials and texts as well as examples of high-quality writing to inspire children and to enable them to emulate these styles, which helps children understand that their writing is for reading. We also aim to ensure language and vocabulary is built up from our youngest children through school using our own school’s outcome approach along with our own assessment systems to ensure our children are able to write at the best of their ability.

Spelling and grammar is taught fluidly across writing lessons and discreetly. Handwriting is taught and practised across the school in conjunction with phonics and spellings. We also recognise the importance of applying writing skills across the wider curriculum and plan regularly for this to take place.

Implementation

Writing is taught through a range of genres and exciting stimuli, which includes books, film clips, artefacts, visitors and real-life experiences. We strive to provide real purposes and audiences for writing and equip children to develop a rich vocabulary which can help them bring their writing to life. We believe that engaging in daily and meaningful talk and writing is one of the best ways to develop children’s language. Basic skills and non-negotiable underpin writing in all areas of the curriculum.

Writing can be thought of as a process made up of five components: — planning; drafting; revising; editing and publishing. Teachers model the writing process and demonstrate the ambitious high standards expected of all children. Every child is encouraged to let their imagination and personality shine through in their writing.

 

Each teacher/ year group uses the objectives mapped out in the National Curriculum and the EYFS Framework as their foundation point and plan writing lessons against the school’s Progression Document which provides a yearly overview of the writing genres, both narrative and non-fiction, that they need to teach within.

We plan our teaching sequence linked to our reading books, topic or current interests, alongside overarching long-term plans. All this supports the writing curriculum.

Throughout school, we recognise that language plays an important role in helping students understand curriculum content, as it is a vital link to writing. Teachers assist students to bridge from talk to writing, discussing the writing process and using meta-cognition to show them how we write.  Opportunities to practice oracy within all our writing teaching sequences and to support their thinking and organisation of writing. Spellings are linked directly with phonics for our younger children and Years 2-6 use the spelling rules in the NC Statutory Guidance and spelling lists.  The teaching of handwriting goes hand in hand with phonics as the teacher’s model and children practice letter formation and a fluent joined style when ready. Grammar and punctuation are threaded and planned carefully across each teaching sequence and in the context of the writing, so that children can see the purpose and how it is used.

The formative assessment of writing is done on a daily basis using AfL and teacher knowledge, with summative assessment done at the end of a teaching sequence in an Independent Write. The teacher's assessment of each objective is recorded and moderated within phases and with English lead. Moderation is a key element to ensure consistency and accuracy in each piece of writing, which is linked to the National Curriculum.

Teachers will refer to the writing exemplification in Reception as well as the TAFS in Year 2 and Year 6 and other teachers may use the exemplification folders that have been developed for other year groups as a support for making judgements and to inform planning.

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Sentence Structure

To instil an ability to confidently build sentences as our pupils progress through school, children are introduced to simple sentences in early Key Stage 1, majoring on the very basics of sentence construction through rehearsal of sentences and continual practice and mastery of these simple sentences creates a confidence that subsequent teaching builds on.

From this point, complexity is built year upon year, always beginning with the original simple sentence and building outwards from there. Weekly sentence building tasks throughout school are sequenced in such a way that the basic sentence unit is being constantly developed and expanded to the degree that, by Upper Key Stage 2, children can begin to manipulate grammatical constructions to create a range of different effects.

Punctuation

Increasingly difficult punctuation is both explicitly through SPaG activities and modelled through the daily use of class readers and quality book-based units. In conjunction with explicit teaching and dependable understanding of sentence structure, children are able to apply an ever-expanding range of punctuation marks in their writing.

Basic errors in these punctuation marks are picked up in marking and will be corrected by children the next time work is completed, allowing them to quickly reflect on their own writing and correct any errors made.

Planning And Editing

We recognise that choosing words for the page is only part of the skill of writing and must also join with the key skills of planning and editing. As children develop these skills, the purpose and audience take prominence in order to enhance the quality of writing produced.

We also recognise editing as a key foundation of writing successfully, and it has become a central facet of our writing pedagogy to use ‘pit-stop’ editing, pausing regularly to re-read and edit work (both correcting errors and improving writing) rather than undertaking one large session of editing once a piece has been written.

Spelling and grammar are taught fluidly across writing lessons and discreetly. Handwriting is taught and practised across the school in conjunction with phonics and spellings. We also recognise the importance of applying writing skills across the wider curriculum and plan regularly for this to take place.

Publishing

Recent research has suggested that there are many factors that contribute to children producing high-quality writing. One of these is having a clear audience and purpose for their writing; alongside this is the chance to ‘publish’ their work by writing it - in the neatest fashion possible. This practice gives purpose to our editing time and ensures that children really do give their best to their writing. At Fixby, we publish our work after every writing opportunity and, where possible, present it to the proposed audience to fulfil its original purpose.

 

Writing Intent