Intent

At St Nicholas CE Primary School, we understand that writing is an essential skill and that we must overcome any barriers that prevent children from becoming confident writers. We aim to help our children develop these skills in the following ways:
• introducing and deconstructing a wide variety of model texts, covering a variety of genres
• by exposing and highlighting higher level vocabulary
• giving children opportunities to write for an authentic purpose
• ensuring children have opportunities to talk about and plan their writing
• a solid understanding of grammar and ability to use it for effect
• giving children opportunity to evaluate, revise and edit their own work as well as offer feedback on the work of their peers
• to be able to spell, not only the prescribed spelling words but also beyond, through the teaching of spelling rules
• take pride in their work and its presentation, including their handwriting
We believe that these steps will provide children with the building blocks needed for successful writing at secondary school and beyond.

 

 

Implementation

Approaches to Writing

 

Children have the opportunity to experience a wide range of texts, and to support their work with a variety of resources, such as dictionaries, thesauruses, Magpie words and individual word banks. We use the ST Nicholas IPEEL method which involves reading high quality texts, breaking a text apart, looking at how it was made and then using it as a basis for rebuilding our own. Wherever possible we encourage children to use and apply their learning in other areas of the Curriculum through developing close, well-planned cross-curricular links.

 

Writing aims:

 

• Study language usage and use models of good writing to develop their own skills
• Value their own work and that of others, discuss their writing with peers and adults
• Write for a variety of audiences and purposes, using a range of genres and standard formats in fiction, poetry and non-fiction texts
• Know how written Standard English varies in degrees of formality
• Read more challenging literature, broadening their reading horizons
• Know and use grammatical features in their composition of writing in conjunction with the National Curriculum.

 

• Know a range of language features and use these within their creative writing
• Be exposed to multimedia such as images and videos as a starting point for writing and to ‘hook’ and engage from the start of each unit.
• Build children’s writing stamina
• Write and embed learnt spellings in writing accurately.

 

Development of writing:

 

• Emergent writing – In Early Years, we promote developmental or emergent writing.  Children are given opportunities to experiment and to write spontaneously.  The children see adults writing and then experiment with writing for themselves through mark making and personal writing symbols.  These opportunities should be meaningful and linked to the child’s ‘play’, e.g.s writing shopping lists, menus in a café, letters in post office.
• Shared writing – teachers regularly model a variety of writing formats such as narrative, recounts, letters, diaries etc for the whole class.
• Guided writing/independent writing – pupils work in small groups to develop their own writing ideas with the support of adults using a variety of writing frames.  All pupils in KS1 and 2 have the opportunity to write independently across the curriculum.  Written work covers a wide range of genres and is marked in line with the school’s marking policy.

 

 

Handwriting:

We recognise that handwriting plays an important part in developing children’s spelling. Our EYFS and KS1 children learn basic letter formation aiming for all letters to be correctly orientated and formed. During Year 2, when children have mastered this, cursive letter formation is introduced, modelled and taught. In KS2 continuous cursive handwriting is taught, modelled and the expectation is that is practised by all children. By the end of Y6 we expect a neat, cursive style which has correctly orientated letters, joined correctly and is neat and legible in line with the National Curriculum standards.

Impact

Pupils will make good progress from their own personal starting points. By the end of Year Six they will be able to write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. Our pupils will acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of the written word. Most importantly, they will develop a love of writing and be well equipped for the rest of their education.

St Nicholas Primary Academy Long Term Plan

At St Nicholas Primary Academy writing opportunities are planned ensuring all genres are covered across the year groups.  We know that children write best when they have a purpose for their writing and have lots of ideas.  We therefore do our best to plan writing lessons with our topic curriculum in mind, enabling the children to use their learning in different areas of the curriculum. Our long term map for each year group can be seen below.