Intent

At St Michael’s, we strive to give children the best possible start to allow them to become fluent and capable writers in order to be able to communicate their ideas effectively throughout the rest of their education and beyond.

We have developed our curriculum to ensure that children are given the opportunity to write for different audiences and purposes, often using reading as inspiration for this. We believe that talk and reading are essential foundations for children to become successful writers and we give them the opportunity for this through our English curriculum.

We also give students many opportunities for writing across the curriculum, enabling them to share their curiosity for learning.

Implementation

A medium-term plan for writing has been created by teachers, which ensures that all purposes for writing and spelling, punctuation and grammar objectives are covered across each year, and that this allows for progression. We have access to Literacy Shed Plus to support teachers with their planning. Suggested units for each term are given; these do not have to be followed if teachers wish to adapt or plan their own units, as long as all objectives are still covered. Writing opportunities are linked to class novels, picture books, wider curriculum coverage, real life experiences or short films. Quality texts read to the children and available for them to read independently; this allows them to draw upon their reading for inspiration.

The grammar and punctuation objectives are embedded throughout the writing curriculum to ensure that this is meaningful and purposeful for the children. We have a large focus on vocabulary at St Michael’s. We explicitly teach challenging vocabulary to children, enabling them to use this in their writing. Children in KS2 also use glossaries in other subjects to encourage the acquisition of more subject-specific vocabulary. 

EYFS and KS1 are taught early writing and spelling through the Read Write Inc phonics scheme. We use Spelling Shed to teach children spellings in KS2. This scheme involves the relationship between sounds and written symbols as well as using morphology to help spell through meaning.

Children have the opportunity to write across the curriculum in all other subjects, such as History, Geography, RE and Science. This encourages them to transfer their skills from English lessons into other areas.

A high standard of cursive handwriting is modelled across school and children are encouraged to imitate this. It is taught and practised regularly, and expected across the curriculum, and interventions are planned where necessary.

Children are also given the opportunity to write for real life purposes such as: writing letters to local businesses or MPs; writing competitions; writing informal letters or cards to friends, families or members of the school community; writing presentations or scripts for class assemblies and plays; and many more.

Impact

By the end of their time at St Michael’s, children should be confident and fluent writers, and be able to communicate effectively using the written word. They should also enjoy writing for pleasure, taking joy in being able to choose a purpose and audience for writing.

The impact of our writing curriculum is measured in the following ways:

·         Independent writing assessments are held at the end of each term and teachers assess this against the writing objectives for their year group. We hold internal writing moderation to ensure that teaching staff are rigorous in their assessment.

·         Constant formative assessment takes place in lessons and subsequent lessons are planned, intervention groups are created or feedback is given based on this (either verbally, written marking or whole class feedback).

·         Internal and external moderation is carried out to ensure that our writing judgements are accurate.

·         Subject monitoring is carried out through learning walks, book looks and pupil & teacher voice.