INTENT
At Bromesberrow St. Mary’s school our intent for Writing is (as for the whole curriculum) to build knowledge ‘cumulatively’, so that children build on their knowledge of and skills in Writing, as they grow throughout the school, living out our vision: Shining Together, We Reach for the Stars. We teach the National Curriculum for Writing. Our core drivers for Writing are:
- To teach children to be fluent writers, in terms of spelling, grammar, punctuation and handwriting, recognising that these skills are essential in order to be able to communicate clearly
- To inspire and enable all children to write, giving them the skills to communicate for a variety of purposes and audiences
- To support the most vulnerable learners to be able to communicate with purpose in writing, adapting resources and approaches in order to achieve this.
- For children to love reading and be immersed in quality texts, so that they can learn from these, writing for pleasure, and communicating with clarity and accuracy.
To us Communication is at the heart of writing. In order to be a good writer and be able to communicate through this medium you need to:
- Have good verbal (using expression, intonation and a strong vocabulary) and non-verbal (using gesture and facial expression) communication skills.
- Be able to spell accurately, so that you can communicate clearly- you can be understood!
- Be able to vary sentences to ensure your writing makes sense and is interesting, using different grammar and punctuation rules and conventions in order to achieve this.
- Be able to write clearly and legibly, so that a reader can ‘read’ what you are trying to communicate.
To enable our children to connect with the purpose for writing as a means to communication we provide a ‘Front Cover’ for each unit of work, which provides a clear purpose for writing through learning outcomes, a published piece, as well as the grammar and punctuation rules and conventions being taught. This is all explicitly planned in our Writing Text Progression
To support the children in this further we have created an explicit check list to have at the front of their books:
Share:
- I have a purpose to write and know who will be reading my writing.
- I need to be able to share my ideas for writing and listen to the ideas of others.
Write:
- I need to be able to write my ideas down so that other people can read them.
Organise:
- I need to be able to organise my writing so that other people enjoy and understand it.
Teachers also create checklists to accompany daily teaching sessions in English Writing.
IMPLEMENTATION
- Verbal and Non Verbal Communication: We prioritise this through our focus on quality adult-child interactions whereby we actively model how to communicate and explicitly teach vocabulary to use in different contexts. Our Communication and Language Curriculum explains this is more detail.
- Spelling: We use Bug Club Phonics approach to teach spelling predominantly up until the Autumn term Y2, with Twinkl Spelling resources gradually taking over from this (this transition is clearly mapped out in our Phonics and Spelling Curriculum Progression). This progression document then maps out the explicit teaching of spelling for KS2, where a new spelling rule is taught each week. Children then have explicit opportunities to practise and apply these to their writing across the curriculum. All children are taught our spelling Curriculum, however we recognise that for some children spelling can be a significant barrier to writing. With this in mind we adapt the curriculum to enable them to access and improve spelling alongside quality first teaching e.g. through the use of Dyslexia Gold or other technologies or through focused scaffolding during lessons.
- Grammar and Punctuation: Grammar rules are taught explicitly through our text based curriculum, whereby teachers use our writing progression to enable children to learn the correct conventions matched to the text they are immersed in e.g. if the quality text is ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ by Julia Donaldson in Y1, then you would be learning to add in appropriate adjectives to make your character description sentences more interesting to the reader. The grammar progression for each national curriculum year is shared below.
- Handwriting: We teach children to form the letters accurately to write words in a non cursive script from Reception through to the end of year 1. This is taught daily as part of our phonics programme. We then introduce cursive script from Y2 upwards. This is taught as part of our spelling approach. All children are taught using the Handwriting Approach, however we recognise that some children have significant barriers in fine motor development. With this in mind we support the communication element of writing using technology and word processing software.
Please see our 'What a Writing Lesson Looks like at Bromesberrow' below.
IMPACT
In order for our Writing Curriculum to have had an impact, we will see children who are:
- Able to write for a variety of different purposes and audiences
- Part of an inspired, motivated and engage community of writers
- Able to spell accurately and where there are specific barriers to spelling are able to use other mediums to support communication in writing, so that spelling is not a barrier to writing
- Able to vary sentences with knowledge, skill and purpose in appropriate contexts to interest and engage the reader
- Have a legible handwriting style which enables them to communicate on paper and where handwriting is a barrier to writing then good word processing skills to enable effective communication in writing to occur.