Writing:
Intent: What do we intend the children to learn through our writing curriculum?
At Horton, we recognise that in order for our children to be able to write coherently and creatively, they first need to talk about, have read to them, and themselves read quality, engaging texts that feed their imagination and curiosity. Our aim is for our children to be independent writers for a range of audiences and purposes, across different genres, using subject specific and ambitious vocabulary.
The national curriculum for writing aims to ensure that all pupils:
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate
Children will be taught to apply their grammar, spelling and punctuation knowledge, alongside their genre awareness across themes and subject matter that have been carefully developed around high-quality, challenging texts that match our wider curriculum.
We embed the teaching of punctuation and grammar within our English teaching through high-quality modelled writes and a sustained grammar journey. We teach phonics and then spelling in separate sessions using Little Wandle and then Spelling Shed, which have clear progression for each year group.
Implementation: How is the writing curriculum delivered across the school to ensure we meet our intentions?
Our writing curriculum is designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum. Grammar and punctuation skills are mapped out across the year groups to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge. Writing genres are mapped out and pupil outcomes show progression both across the year group and across the school. Each genre is taught explicitly and other opportunities are provided for learners to apply skills independently on more than one occasion before the end of the year.
New learning is built upon up on prior knowledge which is revisited regularly. All new learning starts by revisiting prior knowledge. This knowledge has been explicitly mapped out progressively for Grammar and punctuation and for each genre across the year groups. All staff are aware of prior learning and consider this carefully when planning and delivering an objective or teaching a genre. Grammar and punctuation objectives are taught explicitly through a sustained learning journey that provides learners with a range of consolidation opportunities to embed learning before finally applying skills within independent writing opportunities.
This is how our writing curriculum fits together:
The sustained GP
learning journey is broken down as follows:
Revisit, Teach New Learning, Consolidate, Apply, Retain.
Staff explicitly model the subject-specific vocabulary. The robust instruction of precise vocabulary is taught explicitly through learning journeys, either within whole class reading or within the build up to an independent write.
Parallel to this, a learning journey is planned to teach the genre features and skills that are needed to write a final independent written outcome.
This Genre Journey is broken down as follows:
When planning this journey to the written outcome staff also consider:
- What knowledge and skills do the children need to be taught in order to write in the style of that genre?
- What does the written outcome look like for a child who is at or above the age-related expectation?
- How will you sequence the components of the journey to ensure that the knowledge is embedded at each stage for the children to have a true understanding of the objective outcome?
- Does the children’s planning sheet identify the key components leading to the final written outcome?
Learners are taught to edit and improve their own work. The editing and improving process begins at the planning stage and continues throughout the first draft and ends with a final draft stage. Throughout the editing and improving process, changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation are made to ensure accuracy, enhance effects and to clarify meaning.
Learning is supported by the use of working walls that provide children with visual information that supports them to retain GPS and vocabulary in their long-term memory. Subject specific vocabulary is displayed on the learning wall.
‘Sentence Not Sentence’ sessions are used throughout the week to review learning and articulate knowledge and previously taught skills through the use of the consistent school definitions to embed concepts and skills. AfL and quality first teaching is used to plan these retention activities, as misconceptions that have been identified by the teacher can be addressed promptly in these retention sessions.
Handwriting is planned specifically for each phase – EYs, KS1 and KS2. This is documented in our Handwriting Progression document, where there is a clear and sustained plan on what the children are taught and when. We have considered the grouping of letters based on their formation, alongside the children’s phonic progression in Little Wandle.
Impact: How do we know the children have learnt what we intended?
Our ambitious curriculum provides opportunities for children to access high-quality texts. Writing tasks develop the children’s understanding and enable them to apply knowledge, skills, subject-specific and ambitious vocabulary to produce confident and coherent pieces of writing appropriate for the children’s age group.
We know this is evident through the quality of work the children produce across the curriculum and the love and appreciation for writing they show when they talk about English at our school:
- Our historic KS1 SATs and End of Year 1 Phonic Screening statutory assessments all show that our children achieve above the national average.
- Our internal data demonstrates the personal progress children make throughout their time at St. Augustine’s and some outstanding progress from individual starting points.
- Children develop and apply a neat style of handwriting throughout all subject areas by the time the leave us.
- All children succeed and flourish in lessons because they have the appropriate support, scaffolds, resources and challenge.
- They apply the knowledge and understanding they have of different text genres and the features of these in their own independent writing.
- They use ambitious, tier 2 vocabulary, alongside subject-specific vocabulary in their writing that considers the audience and context.
- Children learn the skills required to edit and improve their own work against the success criteria for a particular piece of writing.
- They simply love writing! The children ooze passion and excitement for writing and for continually striving to improve their work!
