Maidwell Primary School

Writing

Intent

At Maidwell Primary School, writing is an integral part of our curriculum. All children from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with significant, valuable opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum for a range of purposes and audiences.

Our intention is for pupils to leave primary education being able to:

  • independently plan, revise and evaluate their writing;
  • communicate and express themselves effectively through the written word;
  • write for a range of purposes and audiences;
  • use fluent, legible and speedy handwriting, even when writing at length.

To be able to do this effectively, pupils focus on developing effective transcription and effective composition to ensure their writing is presented in the most meaningful, effective, and grammatically accurate manner. Through each writing cycle or activity completed, pupils will develop an awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wider knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.

 

Implementation

We are proud to be a long-standing Talk for Writing school having embraced the process in 2012. We are also a Storytelling School and this approach, together with that of Talk for Writing, enables our children to build vocabulary, sentence patterns and an understanding of how language works across both narrative and non-fiction genres. Central to this are the three main stages of: Imitation, Innovation and Independent Application – which moves children from dependence to independence.

The process of learning a text, story or poem followed by innovation through shared writing is essential to our teaching of writing and allows children to become skilled writers throughout the school.

We make extensive use of model texts, written in-school by our teachers, which pinpoint exactly the skill being studied at that moment. Within these texts, we also include a diverse range of rich vocabulary so as to enhance the children’s exposure to vocabulary outside of their normal day-to-day experiences.

We have generic policies across the entire school for aspects that include:

  • Keeping oracy and reading at the heart of the teaching of writing;
  • Kinaesthetic punctuation;
  • Common signs and symbols for conjunctions;
  • Specific colours and actions to represent word types;
  • Toolkits for composition and grammar which are progressive and ensure that composition is taught to meet Age Related Expectations.

This enables ease of transition between classes, as children can build upon their prior learning with ease ensuring they maximise their opportunity for progression each year.

In addition, we plan for a generic story type and non-fiction text type per term, across the year, for continuity and progression. Children develop a common understanding of the story/text type enabling writing to be shared across the school and staff can share ideas and plan effectively for the needs of their children. EYFS children follow a similar approach using different stories.

Another key aspect of our Talk for Writing classrooms is the use of 'Washing Lines' where we display all the toolkits, shared writing, analysed model texts, writing plans and other resources for children to absorb as they develop their writing.

We recognise we have a diverse range of learning styles amongst our children so aim to present learning in an accessible way i.e. sentence stems, visual aids, writing frames, regular opportunities to verbalise their work before writing and collaborative composition.

In addition, we work with an artist on a termly basis who, with the children's input, creates rich images linked to the story which the children can then use as a stimulus for their writing.

 

Impact

By the end of their time with us, pupils have learned, improved and embedded a wide range of writing skills. They have an awareness of a broad range of authors, text types, genres and writing techniques drawn from a diverse range of cultures and are able to critically respond to texts both as a reader and as a writer. In doing so we aim to contribute to our children’s future adult literacy skills e.g. being able to write a report or formal letter in their future place of work. Our pupils are confident to express themselves, including their thoughts and emotions, through their written work, drawing upon the range of high-quality models and literature they have been exposed to; they are not afraid to take risks in their writing and can write for a range of purposes. They have a good grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting. There is evidence of a range of writing both in their Talk 4 Writing lessons and across the wider curriculum with regular moderation of writing standards against the Teacher Assessment Framework (TAF) statements allowing teachers to identify and address gaps in learning.

Most importantly, children have found and enjoyed a creative outlet – a means of self-expression, enjoyment and communication.