Writing
This is an extract from the Writing curriculum policy with information for parents (full policy available on request). Our Writing policy is currently under review as we work with the Priority Literacy Programme.
Curriculum Intent:
The aim of the writing curriculum is for children to become highly literate, creative writers and articulate speakers, it has been designed to ensure that children learn these competences through the range of written genres they study over both KS1 and 2. At Seely Primary there is high value attached to the acquisition of language; teachers introduce children to rich and meaningful vocabulary from EYFS to Year 6, and children go on to apply high level, tier 2 vocabulary within their writing. Writing is a crucial part of our curriculum and opportunities for children to write across genres and topics is systemically planned across the academic year. This ensures that children experience the breadth of techniques required to ensure they are competent writers, that can write for a range of purposes and audiences
We aim for all pupils to:
- communicate in writing clearly, confidently and appropriately; demonstrating an awareness of a variety of purposes and audiences
- become adept at writing both fiction and non-fiction
- foster a genuine love of writing across genres
- be immersed in what they write through the use of high-quality texts, experience days and a rich language environment
o become experts at applying literary techniques in order to engage readers - use accurate spelling through the use of a systematic spelling programme (see separate document for spelling guidance)
- present work that they are proud of through the accurate use of handwriting conventions
Pedagogy and Implementation:
At Seely Primary School, we use The Write Stuff (TWS) as an initiative to teach narrative, this approach brings clarity to the mechanics of the teaching of writing. It follows a method called ‘sentence stacking’.
Sentence stacking refers to the fact that sentences are grouped together chronologically or organizationally to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can apply immediately to their writing. An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken into three separate ‘chunks’ of learning.
TWS approach revolves around the ‘writing rainbow,’ this is split in to 3 tiers and each ‘chunk’ of learning will focus on at least one of the lenses from the rainbow.
We ensure that any grammar and punctuation content specific to a planned unit is taught prior to the unit of writing starts.
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Each unit begins with an ‘experience day.’ Children need experiences to enable them to write. We therefore need to immerse them in what we want them to write about. This could be: trips, visitors, video clips, sound clips, artefacts, objects, drama etc. From this experience, teachers need to wring out (generate words and phrases) all the ways children can think about that experience, using the FANTASTICs. It is essential that the experience day enables children to develop their understanding of what they are going to write about; it must have meaning and link purposely to writing.
Within the ‘Initiate’ stage, teachers provide a stimulus for vocabulary gathering, often children generate words and phrases through CHOT (chat and jot). The teacher will then use KCO (kind calling out) to gather a range of ideas from the children, here the teacher acts as a scribe to jot down the children’s best ideas, creating a mind map of the children’s work. Using this, the teacher then models a sentence that incorporates the lenses that are the focus for this chunk of learning. This sentence is written on to sentence strips so that the ‘shared write’ is created in ‘real time’, using the children’s ideas.
When gathering language – children can come up with their own words, work in pairs, use ‘thesaurus thinking time,’ yet then the teacher also provides them with further high-quality words; constantly exposing them to better vocabulary. At Seely Primary, we believe that children need more words, not less.
Children then use their own ideas, to create their sentence. As the teacher has provided so many rich examples from the initiate (model) phase, it is unlikely that the children will copy the shared example; they are well equipped to construct their own sentence following a similar structure to the one modelled.
We want all children to excel at writing, however some children are naturally gifted writers, therefore we plan for them to develop their writing through the use of ‘deepening the moment’. This requires deep immersion from the writer, they stop, do a 360 degree turn and provide further detail about the plot point. They do not plot push. They do not move on. They simply tell us more.
