Victoria Road Primary School
Writing
Writing at Victoria Road Primary School
INTENT
At Victoria Road Primary School, we endeavor to create a love for writing. We want every child to leave our school with the skills of an excellent writer who:
- Has the ability to write with fluency and has an author’s voice;
- Can think about the impact they want their writing to have on the reader and knows how they will achieve this;
- Has a sophisticated bank of vocabulary and a growing awareness of words and language;
- Can structure and organise their writing to suit the genre they are writing;
- Displays fluent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented, punctuated and spelt correctly using strategies taught to them.
- Re-reads, edits and improves their writing so every piece of writing they produce is to the best of their ability and better than the last using self-regulation and metacognition strategies.
Throughout their time at Victoria Road Primary School, children develop their skills by exploring a whole range of different genres through high quality texts. We focus on exploring a range of models of writing through reading engaging and high quality texts in both class and individual reading and use these to help the children self-regulate their own writing. It is important to note that we not only develop a real enjoyment of writing in english lessons but in all subjects across the curriculum. We expect the highest standards of writing every time a child writes in any subject.
IMPLEMENTATION
A long term overview of writing units has been developed with a focus on high quality texts that support the rest of the curriculum and are designed to fit the needs of our pupils. A diverse range of authors, themes and characters have been carefully considered. These include fiction, non-fiction and poetry across each term. They are designed to be progressive in specific skills being taught as well as cover a range of age appropriate, progressive text types across the year. The texts chosen include contemporary modern texts as well as classic texts. English lessons incorporate all of the intended skills above as well as making meaningful links with reading. A cycle of lessons for each unit is carefully planned for following a bank of strategies in the teachers' toolkits such as Talk for Writing, IPEELL and Bob Cox (see English overview). Staff are clear about the Purpose and Audience of each unit and Text type (PAT). This is made explicit for the children too. Pupils spend time unpicking and exploring quality model texts in each unit. Teachers follow a structured cycle of modelling, investigating, comparing, planning, editing and evaluating to embed pupils ability to write for a range of audiences and purposes. This gradual release of support cycle uses recommendations from the SRSD approach (Self Regulated Strategy Development) and evidence from the EEF.
EYFS - The early years is integral to pupils learning of writing skills. During daily phonics lessons and guided reading sessions the children are taught to write and recognise letters and correctly form them. They are taught the basic concepts of print. They are encouraged to write with the sounds that they hear. The aim at the end of EYFS is for the children to write simple sentences that can be read by others. The learning environment is carefully planned to develop a love of writing and provide opportunities for children to develop their skills independently. Children regularly develop their fine motor skills throughout the day.
Key Stage 1 - Teachers build on the work in the early years to reinforce the relationship between reading and writing. Pupils development is highly scaffolded by the adults, supported by high quality texts. Teachers model writing daily and think aloud to encourage children to apply all skills taught. Motor skills continue to be a high priority and daily opportunities are provided to develop these. Pupils are encouraged to speak their sentences before writing and teachers provide enough time for pupils to discuss and talk about their ideas. Writing sessions build upon the daily phonics annd spelling lessons and pupils have opportunities to apply these skills.
Key Stage 2 - In lower key stage 2 children are now encouraged, when ready, to begin to enhance and evaluate the effectiveness of their writing. Opportunities are given to activate prior learning and to now build upon this with more sophisticated grammar and vocabulary choices. The writing cycle allows time for them to plan, draft, edit and evaluate their writing. Pupils work will still be scaffolded and modelled during the beginning of the key stage with a gradual release of responsibilty as they move to year 4 and begin to write more independently. In upper key stage 2, pupils are expected to write down their ideas at a quicker pace as transcription skills are now, for most pupils, more fully developed. Children are encouraged to select appropriate and effective vocabulary and to be more self-aware of their audience and purpose.
IMPACT
Our Writing Curriculum is designed to be good quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Tracking of knowledge throughout pieces of writing - drafts and final outcomes.
- Pupil discussions about their learning.
- A cycle of work that gradually releases scaffolding and promotes independence/self-regulation.
- Effective feedback systems.
Assessment is an on-going priority and we work closely to work collaboratively to moderate work with each other and across trust/cluster schools.
By the end of their time at Victoria Road, pupils will have experienced a range of high quality texts and genres of writing and be able to write for a range of purposes and audiences.
Impact is measured through assessment as well as book monitoring termly and pupil voice.