Writing Overview – coverage and sequencing summary
| Barlow Hall’s rationale behind the writing curriculum design: The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum, and in our school, is 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 for enjoyment and application in writing. Children write often within English lessons and the wider curriculum, We aim to foster an enjoyment of writing and for children to understand its importance as a tool for communication. The aim of our writing curriculum is for children to learn to communicate through writing for different purposes: to persuade, to inform, to entertain and to discuss. Using high quality texts, children explore short writing opportunities to develop writing stamina. They have regular opportunities to engage fully with the writing process i.e. planning, writing, editing and revising. Our intention by the end of Primary School is for children to have developed the necessary writing skills of oral rehearsal, transcription (spelling and handwriting), sentence construction and composition of a range of genres and styles. Our curriculum design Our writing curriculum is designed to follow the recommendations of the Education Endowment Foundation (Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 and 2). These recommendations include: – Teach pupils to use strategies for planning and monitoring their writing (recommendation 5, KS1) – Promote fluent transcription skills by encouraging extensive and purposeful practice and explicitly teaching spelling (recommendation 6, KS1) – Use high quality information about pupil’s current capabilities to select the best next steps for teaching (recommendation 7, KS1) – Use high quality structured interventions to help pupils who are struggling with their literacy (recommendation 8, KS1, recommendation 7, KS2) – Teach writing composition strategies through modelled and supportive practice (recommendation 4, KS2) – Develop pupils’ transcription and sentence construction skills through extensive practice (recommendation 5, KS2) – Target teaching and support by accurately assessing pupil needs (recommendation 6, KS2) The writing strands across our school are: – handwriting (through Letterjoin handwriting scheme) – spelling (explicit teaching of spelling including delivery of our SSPS) – sentence construction (see separate document for progression of sentence construction) – the process of writing (planning, execution, revising/editing) Our curriculum outlines the essential skills that need to be taught in each year across these strands of writing. Our writing curriculum is designed to be progressive, so that children are given many opportunities to practice the writing skills they have previously learnt, while building on this by practising new skills they have been taught. Each year group has their Writing Rules, which they know are the non-negotiables for every piece of writing they complete. Within texts, lessons are carefully planned so that the knowledge and skills are delivered through purposeful and appropriate tasks, building skills, understanding and schemata from one lesson to another, one text to another and throughout their time in Barlow Hall. By the end of Key Stage 2, children at Barlow Hall will have had exposure to a range of diverse and quality texts. Through these texts, they will have had opportunities to develop their transcription and composition skills. There will be a key focus on vocabulary woven through the teaching. Many of the lessons will be a written response to the text. A purpose for writing will be identified each lesson and modelling will provide the children with access to an example of the written outcome. We have identified the following purposes for writing in our curriculum: – to entertain – to inform – to persuade – to discuss Within each text unit, children will be directly taught sentence construction (including grammar), and the process of writing. The process of writing opportunity within each text unit will enable children to more deeply explore and learn about different writing styles and purposes, through the planning, execution and revision of a piece of writing linked to a selected purpose. Progression in the writing process can be seen through our use of purpose toolkits across the school. Guided Writing lessons take place across Key Stages 1 and 2. – In these lessons, children receive one to one feedback on their writing across six identified strands. – In these lessons, children will have the opportunity to evaluate, revise and re-draft their writing, as well as share their writing with an audience. Each phase has a toolkit for each strand and these toolkits outline our model for progression in developing these skills. The six Guided Writing strands are: – developing character through description – using dialogue to develop action or character – a rich description of an object or setting – describing a setting to set tone or atmospherecreating tension, action, adventure or mystery – influencing or persuading the reader Assessment and feedback occurs in every writing lesson. Children’s writing skills are assessed against the year group’s Writing Rules every term through independent pieces of writing and using ongoing teacher assessment. Teaching and support is targeted for children who are assessed to be struggling with their writing. |
