Writing
Intent and Implementation
Intent:
Our curriculum shows clear planning and sequencing across the whole school to support our children in building upon previous knowledge and achieving success. Our curriculum is ambitious and designed to give all learners, particularly the disadvantaged the knowledge and cultural capital they need to have success in life. This can be seen through the progress children are making across the school within Writing. Our curriculum sets out clear end points. This can be seen through our assessment system, progression documents and planning. We ensure that, across the school, that children have the opportunity to learn to write for a range of purposes, are aware of their audience, are equipped with the grammar and punctuation skills they need to be successful and have access to a range of high quality and rich texts to drive their writing. Children are given opportunities to write and to refine these skills across the curriculum not just in writing sessions. We intend that children achieve the key skills expected of them by the end of each year.
At Orchard Fields, we have adapted and adopted the Read, Write Perform/Learning Journey approach in the learning and teaching of Writing and a skills-based approach in reading. The National Curriculum and end of key- stage phases focuses a bigger emphasis on audience, purpose and form and has therefore moved away from a genre-driven approach as used before. Research shows that when rich texts are used to drive a written piece, it enriches children store of knowledge, allows them to creatively imitate quality writers and builds strong links between reading and writing. Purpose and audience are central to effective writing. Pupils need to have a reason to write and someone to write for, (Improving Literacy in Key Stage Two, EEF Guidance Report). Since developing this approach, our end of Key Stage Two data for writing has consistently been in line with national data. Children have suggested that by using a text first, they have a better understanding of text types and that the text-drivers give them ideas to help. Throughout the school, children‘s independence has developed and their understanding of the features needed is more coherent. Because writing is taught in this way, it means that children are exposed to more books than ever before.
Implement:
In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in writing, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Writing is taught through a learning journey/Read, Write Perform approach, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. At Orchard Fields, we ensure that reading is embedded throughout writing, as we feel this is important to enable all children to see the importance of reading and writing as a consistent pair. A rich, high-quality text underpins each writing unit and children are then taught the grammar and punctuation needed to create a text for a specific purpose. Consideration is given to how greater depth will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion. Cross curricular outcomes in writing are specifically planned for, with strong links between reading and writing lessons identified, planned for and utilised. Each unit of writing is driven by a text, audience and purpose, which is explored in conjunction with the children.
Across the school, there is a one-hour daily Literacy lesson. These lessons begin with a word/spelling/grammar of the day to increase children’s vocabulary, then main input is developed, including modelled and shared writing (when necessary) and lastly, the activity and plenary. Lessons vary depending on where in the unit the lesson is. During the read stage, children will be gathering vocabulary, reading texts similar in genre-type, looking at good examples, applying reading skills, exploring the text driver and pre-teaching vocabulary needed. During the ‘Write’ stage, children are learning the discrete grammar needed to be successful and planning the text they’re going to write. They then develop their ideas into a draft in small chunks. During the ‘Perform’ stage, children will have edited and created a final draft. Their work is then used to fit the purpose intended.
