'Believe, Excite, Succeed, Together'

Our Writing Curriculum 

 Intent 

Writing is a crucial part of our curriculum at Welbourn CE Primary School. We intend for all pupils to have developed a love of writing and to be able to express their thoughts and ideas creatively and clearly through writing. In preparation for all aspects of secondary school, we expect our writers to be able to re-read, edit and improve their own writing and able to use and apply essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling. Our children take pride in their writing by using neat, cursive handwriting.

Implementation 

We follow The National Curriculum for English (2014) which aims to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading and writing for enjoyment.

Click here to view our Writing progression document 

Click here to view our Speaking and Listening Progression of Skills

Click here to view our Long Term Overview for Writing 2023

Click here to view our writing genres for year A and B

Writing in EYFS and Key Stage One

As a school we follow the Read Write Inc scheme for phonics. Children start phonics from their first day in reception and will remain on the RWI scheme until they are competent readers, developing their writing alongside.

Writing

• The children write every day, rehearsing out loud what they want to say, before spelling the words using the graphemes and ‘tricky’ words they know.
• They practise handwriting every day: sitting at a table comfortably, they learn correct letter formation and how to join letters speedily and legibly.
• Children’s composition (ideas, vocabulary and grammar) is developed by drawing on their own experiences and talking about the stories they read.

For more information visit https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/programmes/phonics/

Writing in Key Stage Two  

Writing

Once children have completed their 'Read, Write, Inc program, they will begin  carefully planned English units of learning, our children develop into thoughtful readers and creative writers.  

Each unit starts with a 'cold write' where we assess the children's understanding of different text types and each child receives individual targets to work on during the unit.  We tailor our planning carefully to suit the needs of the children and they will be taught a range of grammar, sentence structure, word/vocabulary building and spelling skills and how to apply this to their writing. Each unit ends with a 'hot write' where they apply all of the skills they have learnt. 

During the year, the children will have the opportunity to study high quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry units. 

Active English

Each lesson, we begin our learning with an Active English activity, which is an approach for teaching grammatical understanding. It uses the principles of mnemonics to embed the learning in an active and engaging way, providing pupils with a deeper grasp of language that serves the foundation to their future. It uses images, actions and verbal reasoning to accelerate learning of grammatical concepts. 

Please find a booklet shared with parents by clicking this link. 

Speaking and Listening

The National Curriculum for English reflects the importance of spoken language and drama in pupils’ development across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. Spoken language underpins the development for reading and writing. The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak are vital for developing their vocabulary, grammar and their understanding for reading and writing.

 Impact 

 We monitor the impact of children’s learning through:

• A reflection and evaluation of standards against the learning outcomes
• Tracking pupil attainment, including use of knowledge and skills.
• Ongoing in school moderation and termly external moderation of writing
• Pupil discussions and conferences
• Termly summative assessments
• Monitoring books and writing evidence across the curriculum
• On going AFL for phonics and assessments every 6 weeks to re group

Assessment for Learning techniques are incorporated in every English lesson, including feedback, appropriate marking, including gap comments. 

Teachers make termly judgements for each pupil against year group expectations and bring this information to Pupil Progress meetings, alongside updates on intervention groups. We report the standards for individual pupils at the end of Reception, Year 2 and Year 6.