Writing

Intent

At The John Wesley CEM Primary School, we understand that secure writing skills are essential for progressing across the curriculum and preparing for life. All teachers have a responsibility to develop pupils’ competence in writing to ensure that pupils build their language and technical skills necessary to fully access the curriculum and prepare for the next step in their school career and their lives. Our school recognises the effect that a fluent, legible and coherent writing style can have on pupils’ progress, both inside and outside of the school environment. At our school, we provide a broad and balanced curriculum which encompasses focused writing practise throughout, including writing for different styles, purposes and audiences.

Our aims are as follows:

To guide and nurture each individual on their own personal journeys to becoming successful writers
Provide exciting writing opportunities and experiences that engage and enhance all pupils
It is important to us that children are exposed to enriched vocabulary and are encouraged to explore the practise of new words in their speaking
To support children in spelling new words by effectively applying phonics, spelling patterns and rules taught
We want all children to have a solid understanding of grammar and apply it effectively to their writin
We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a legible, cursive, individual handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school
We want every child to have a good knowledge of phonics to springboard children to becoming fluent writers
To plan a progressive curriculum to build upon previous teaching, with regular assessment to ensure each child’s needs are met to reach their full potential

Implementation

At The John Wesley CEM Primary School, we follow a whole school mastery approach to writing through the adaptable programme of study, ‘Pathways to Write’. This whole school resource provides high quality texts and resources to facilitate the development of children’s writing. Key skills are taught and repeated, providing multiple opportunities for children to apply their learning to master these fully. We ensure that every unit taught provides children with a wealth of new vocabulary to learn and apply.

Within each year group, a variety of text genres are covered for both fiction and non-fiction. Each unit of work is adaptable and may last anywhere between 3 – 6 weeks and will proceed with the following structure:

Session 1: Gateway

This is an opportunity to hook the pupils into the context of learning and to assess previously taught mastery skills.

Sessions 2 – 11: Pathway

This is when mastery skills are taught and introduced with varying opportunities to practise and apply said skills. The tasks set use genres that children will already be familiar with such as: character/setting descriptions, diary entries, instructions, poetry etc. This provides an ongoing range of evidence to assess children’s progress and understanding.

Sessions 12-15: ‘Writeaway’

The last section of the unit builds to an extended piece of writing. This is opportunity for children to demonstrate their understanding of the skills taught within the unit and be used to facilitate termly summative assessments. Within this unit, pupils are encouraged to plan, write, draft, edit and re-draft with the focus of improving writing and applying mastery skills.

Handwriting:

At John Wesley CEM Primary School, we follow a whole school approach to teaching cursive script using a resource called, ‘Letter-Join’ to ensure consistency throughout the school years.

Children write with handwriting pens from Year 1 and are taught from EYFS to learn the cursive formation of individual letters. Once a child demonstrates fluid handwriting of individual letters, they are taught and encouraged to beginning joining letters together. All teaching staff are expected to maintain consistency in the modelling of handwriting and ensure the classroom environment also matches accordingly.

To ensure children meet the curriculum requirements, our aims are for children:

to develop a neat, legible, speedy handwriting style using continuous cursive letters, which leads to producing letters and words automatically in independent writing.
to take pride in their presentation of written work.
to understand, by the end of Year 6, the importance of neat presentation and cursive script across all subjects.

Impact

At The John Wesley CEM Primary School, our children will:

Enjoy writing and view it as relevant and purposeful, and as a vehicle to communicate their ideas across a range of subjects
Enjoy talking about their writing and show enthusiasm in wanting to improve the effect of their writing on their reading audience
Be proud of their writing and have the opportunity to see it on display and shared with others in the school and with their families
Have high aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life
Have amass a varied vocabulary which they can use across the curriculum and adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

Children’s progress of writing is monitored in lessons daily and summatively assessed termly. Data of writing is provided to the senior leadership team in Terms 2, 4 and 6 and discussed within Pupil Progress meetings. Assessment grids are completed by each class with each of the curriculum statements for age expected and working towards writing broken down into manageable criteria. Teacher’s assessments are monitored through year group and cross year moderations. If children demonstrate a mastery of skills, achieving majority of their year group’s criteria, then they have achieved greater depth.

Children’s developing abilities as writers are assessed through ongoing formative assessment. This process occurs through daily interactions with learners, marking, verbal feedback, modelled examples and fix-its/challenges in purple.

The children’s portfolio of writing produced from the short purposeful writing tasks in the Pathway and the Writeaway piece of writing provide clear assessment information for making end of term and end of year judgements and also provide a wealth of information for moderation across classes/year groups.