Curriculum Statement: Writing
'Excellence, Truth & Grace'
Writing Intent
At Middleton Parish Church School, our goal is to become a school of extraordinary writers where reaching the national standard is the norm for most children. Children will view themselves as writers, who are authentically engaged, demonstrating intrinsic motivation and enjoyment of writing. They will also feel a deep sense of satisfaction from crafting writing that is of the highest quality. Children will embody our motto of excellence, truth and grace in their approach to crafting writing, the overall quality of writing that they produce and the thought that goes into producing writing that is enjoyed by its audience.
Children write for many different purposes, and for a variety of audiences. They also write to communicate their thinking about what they learn in the wider curriculum. They write to entertain, to persuade and share their opinions, to teach others, to make a record of things they do not want to forget, and to reflect on their own thoughts and personal experiences. They write about themselves and their cultures. They share their writing and discuss their development with their peers, teachers and caregivers.
Our curriculum for writing follows the National Curriculum, in that children become increasingly more competent at transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (planning and articulating their ideas in speech and writing showing awareness of the purpose, audience and context of their writing). Teachers use their subject knowledge to decide which elements of spelling, punctuation and grammar should be taught in relation to the genre of writing children are producing, whilst ensuring sufficient coverage of the year group relevant progression objectives.
Children also read as writers. They read and discuss a variety high-quality texts and example texts and use this to construct the writing goals for their writing. Children can identify the audience(s) for their writing and consider their needs and begin to generate their own ideas of what to write about. Through grammar lessons, children learn to use and apply, in their own compositions, the same features and expert techniques they have identified in the high-quality texts that they’ve read, relevant to the year group in which they are in. They can attend to their spellings, handwriting, grammar, and sentence construction to produce fluent writing that is a joy for the reader to read. All of this is underpinned by a clear knowledge and application of the writing process.
Writing Implementation
At Middleton Parish we strive to ensure children are excited about each piece of writing they are going to write. We do this through a writing stimulus – a hook into what they are going to write. This can be in the form of taking the children out of the classroom or reading a book, watching a video clip or even changing something in their classroom; teachers are encouraged to be creative. We also ensure that children are writing for a purpose, not just to ’inform’ or ‘entertain’ but for a reason that will engage them. They think about who is going to read their work, who is the audience and what is the purpose.
Children read good examples (WAGOLLs) of the genre of writing that they will produce. Children ‘pull apart’ a piece of text, identifying features for its purpose and audience and write success criteria for what they need to include in their own writing. The older children get, the more independence can be given to do this. Children can set themselves a target of what they want to achieve in this piece of writing. We then teach, or consolidate, the use of punctuation or grammar that are included in the success criteria. This enables children to be successful in applying these taught elements in their own published writing.
Children plan their writing to ensure it is well structured and includes the desired features; children become more independent throughout the school in their ability to plan their writing. Drafting is a very important part of the writing process at Middleton Parish as children get to have their first attempt at writing the type of text that they are producing. We draft our writing one part at a time to ensure thought and effort go into each sentence and paragraph that we write. Children are encouraged to get their ideas down, take risks and be creative with their choices of vocabulary – keeping the audience and purpose in mind. Children will take time to read their draft as a whole, identify errors, especially those that have been made while ‘risk taking’. Children will be given time to identify errors such as capital letters, commas and full stops. Children are also given the opportunity to evaluate their work next to the success criteria. They will ensure their writing matches the purpose and audience and also includes all necessary features.
Because of our commitment to a reassuringly consistent writing approach, children repeatedly practise the craft of writing, are repeatedly able to write in a variety of common genres, and because these genres are repeated and built upon throughout the years, children begin to place this knowledge into their long-term memory. Children become experts in the writing processes as they move through the school. Because children work through the writing processes repeatedly, and are taught self-regulated writing strategies, they undertake their writing effectively, efficiently and largely independently. Through the use of retrieval activities, known as flashbacks and anchors, children repeatedly recall taught grammatical terminology and apply it to different writing contexts which also helps embed key writing knowledge into children’s long-term memory.
We are aware that for some children our approach needs to be adapted to meet their needs, we do this in a number of ways: simplifying the writing process where possible, giving additional feedback, providing additional modelling, supporting with idea generation or link their writing to something a child is already knowledgeable on as well as provide visual cues to support writing.
Writing Impact
At Middleton Parish, we use both formative and summative assessment to determine the impact of our writing curriculum and that our approach to teaching writing impacts positively on outcomes. Children have their own writing portfolios which contain all the published pieces from their writing projects each year, as well as writing in their books to demonstrate how their writing has improved throughout their time at our school. This is used by teachers to make summative assessments of children’s writing which informs next steps in planning and teaching. Children will have a record of assessment demonstrating progress towards their year groups objectives, always working towards achieving at least the expected standard at the end of each Key Stage. Formative assessment takes place throughout a writing unit and is used by staff to give children verbal feedback on their writing to ensure improvements can be made in the moment. Children also develop independence self-assessing their own work as well as evaluate the writing of their peers. This enables children to make improvements by themselves or from listening to the advice of others. Our approach to assessment ensures that we are clear on what the outcomes are for all children, including disadvantaged children and children with SEND, and are able to work proactively to improve writing outcomes.
Curriculum - Writing
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