Writing

Writing is learning how to use language to express ideas.

"I feel proud of my Viking God House description because I tried really hard to use ambitious vocabulary," Year 6

Intent

Writing

Inspire confident writers who use their imagination and show creative flare.
Enable our children to be fluent writers who structure a sentence accurately.
Enable our children to write for different purposes by demonstrating an understanding of different genres and their features.
Provide our children with a wide and ambitious vocabulary that they are able to use in the correct context.
Develop detailed ideas in writing, adapting language to audience and purpose.

Implementation

Writing

Writing is central to our creative curriculum and therefore teachers plan writing tasks that are both linked to each unit of learning and meet the needs and engagement of specific cohorts.
Teachers plan writing tasks with Rosenshine’s 10 principles in mind. Teachers consider the ‘end point’ for each unit of learning and then map small steps of learning that will enable children to meet this.
Grammar progression is mapped across the school.
Teachers utilise Writing Hub resources as a basis for teaching sentence structure. These steps are taught explicitly then integrated into daily teaching.
Colourful Semantics is used to help children identify the important parts of a sentence and learn how to put them together in the correct order.
Teachers scaffold writing at the ‘teaching stage’ through live modelling and shared writing, followed by opportunities for independent writing.
Modelled examples of writing are carefully planned to ensure that they are ambitious and reflect key teaching points.
Writing is inspired by high quality texts that link to each unit of learning.
Each unit of learning finishes with a ‘hot task’ which provides children with an opportunity to showcase all they have learnt in each unit of learning.
Children are given opportunities throughout each unit to rehearse editing skills which are modelled by teachers.
Teachers provide children with next steps for learning through verbal feedback, written feedback and individualised target cards.
Once a ‘hot task’ is complete, teachers assess each child’s writing on the appropriate writing assessment grid. Teaching staff in each year group then moderate at least three pieces of writing from each class. Half-termly, teaching staff are given time in CPD meetings to moderate writing across the school and once yearly we meet with teaching staff at RLP schools to externally moderate writing.
Comparative judgement through No More Marking is used once a year in each year group to assist in affirming teacher’s judgements of writing.
EGPS is assessed using the NFER papers during the Spring and Summer terms in Yr 3/4/5. Once per half-term, past SATs papers are used to assess EGPS progress in Yr 6.

Spelling

Across the school, spelling is taught for twenty minutes per day.
Each week, a different spelling rule is the focus of the five sessions which follow this structure: pre-test, introduce, practise, apply, revisit.
Teachers use EdShed as the main resource for planning spelling which ensures skills are progressive both throughout the year group and across the school.
All children have an individual EdShed login to use as part of home learning.
Rising Stars resources are used to supplement the Ed Shed planning.

Impact

Teachers at St Ann’s Heath use a variety of summative and formative assessment as an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

By the end of KS2, our children will be able to:

Write effectively in a range of genres with a sound understanding of purpose and audience to equip them for real life situations later in life.
Manipulate language, grammar and punctuation to create effect.
Independently reflect on their writing and show the ability to edit and improve their writing with resilience.