INTENT

Our aim at Trottiscliffe CE Primary School is to inspire and enrich every child’s imagination, and create a learning environment and culture where every child is excited to write and encouraged to share their ideas.

Our aspiring authors should be able to take pride in both the presentation and content of their writing, by mastering the use of cursive handwriting, enriched vocabulary, organisational features, spelling, punctuation and grammar which they can confidently adapt according to the intended audience and purpose.

We want children to leave our school equipped with the necessary writing skills to aim and achieve highly, and be competent and independent writers in all areas – ‘real life’ non-fictional writing, that will serve them in all aspects of their life as they grow, and fictional writing, which allows their creativity to shine through. Our pupils will have developed their own individual writing style and very much view themselves as an author, with imaginative and important things to write about.

IMPLEMENTATION

• Using engaging whole-class texts, including picture books, sparks the imagination of our young writers and provides a high-quality model for their own writing. These are provided by our chosen scheme of work, Pathways To Write.
• Through mixed-age planning, with Pathways To Write, progression is explicit and lessons are carefully planned to meet both year group outcomes. Regular opportunities are also included for adaptive teaching, enabling all pupils to learn and make progress.
• Daily English lessons use a balance of ‘whiteboard writing’ to practise working collaboratively with others and share their ideas, stand-alone tasks in their workbooks to practise specific skills and extended pieces of independent writing to demonstrate their mastery of these skills. Teachers build in regular opportunities for children to edit and redraft their writing, again working collaboratively with both their peers and teachers, enabling them to independently improve their writing, and take pride in their finished piece by redrafting it.
• Learning walls and resources are used which prompt children with examples of varied language, grammar and punctuation, that they can adapt to personalise their work. The use of colour semantics is used to help children identify and use different types of language and sentence structures.
• Mighty Writer boards are used in EYFS and Key Stage 1 to make writing an immersive experience, through visual and physical prompts which support their use of language and sentence construction.
• By following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics scheme, our pupils receive a rigorous start to securing accurate spelling knowledge. This is further encouraged through our ambitious spelling scheme, HeadStart, which covers all year group spelling objectives and statutory word lists as set out in the National Curriculum. Both phonics and spelling are taught in daily stand-alone sessions across all year groups. Weekly spelling tests are taken in Years 2-6, to encourage consolidation and high expectations. Catch-up sessions are provided for children who need extra support to secure their phonics knowledge, and morning intervention groups are held for children to close the gaps in their early spelling knowledge, focusing on areas such high frequency words, common exception words, or the spelling rules and lists from the previous year group.
• We provide regular opportunities for children to share their writing within the school community and with their families. Our whole-school ‘Writing Wonderwall’ display celebrates excellent examples of writing and progress each week. Termly ‘Writing Showcases’ across the school and weekly ‘Thumb-Through Thursdays’ for Key Stage 1 welcome parents and families into school for their children to share their writing.
• The Letter Join handwriting programme is used in both class sessions and handwriting interventions to model and secure the accurate use of cursive writing.
• Children are encouraged to practise and consolidate their English skills at home through the use of Doodle English and Doodle Spell. These useful apps adapt the level of questioning in line with the child’s age, year group and ability, offering the opportunity to not only extend their learning, but close the gaps in their knowledge by correcting their work to ‘improve their score’.
• Teachers set writing targets in line with each child’s year group outcomes, which are shared with pupils in their books. These are designed to be prescriptive, manageable and support the child in understanding the ‘bigger picture’ for their writing (which skills they should have secured by the end of that year), encouraging them to aim high. Children are able to practise and master these skills through whole-class teaching and smaller group sessions.
• All children receive targeted support both in and around lessons from teachers and teaching assistants to close the gaps in their knowledge, secure new skills and elevate their abilities. This is achieved through the use of pupil conferencing, verbal and written feedback, one-to-one support, small-group teaching, pre-teaching and morning intervention groups.
• Teaching staff engage in regular moderation across the school and within local school support networks, as well as staff engaging with county-wide end of key stage moderation meetings. This enables us to make confident assessments of our pupils’ writing and know exactly where and how they can make improvements.
• Extended writing opportunities are woven throughout the curriculum, through examples such as historical diary entries, scientific explanations and geographical fact files.
• Children are provided with opportunities for writing outside of the curriculum, through activities and events such as the 500 Word story competition, World Book Day and Book Week, writing and publishing their own class books (‘When I Grow Up’) and publishing their own writing in School Magazine club.
• Our teaching staff are encouraged to share their own passion for writing, and model the same enthusiasm and attention to detail that they foster within their pupils.

IMPACT

Through learning walks, pupil voice and work samples, it is clear that high quality teaching and learning in writing is an exceptionally high priority to us at Trottiscliffe CE Primary School. We continue to make it a whole-school target, as we know how crucial both competent literacy skills and confidence to write are in equipping our pupils for success throughout their lives.

Our phonics screening and end of key stage assessments are consistently above the national average, and we take great pride in being able to demonstrate clear progression in every child’s writing throughout their time here.

Pupils demonstrate high levels of engagement with our carefully selected class texts, and their writing is rich in inspiration. They are able to transfer and build on their skills from year to year, and are becoming increasingly able to edit and improve their writing effectively and independently. During lessons, pupils’ enthusiasm to write is both evident and infectious, and children look forward to putting their ideas to paper, sharing their best work and celebrating it with their peers, families and teachers.