English - Writing

What is the vision for Writing at The Phoenix Primary School and Nursery?

 Our vision for Writing is to enable the children to communicate clearly, confidently and appropriately. Children will write in real-life contexts, affording the children the opportunity to develop a range of strategies and skills, which will enable them to function in society as literate adults.  We intend to create pupils who have a genuine love of writing and an appreciation of its value, so that children choose to write and are able to organise and structure a variety of texts. We intend for children to be proud of their writing ability and to show pride in their written work across all areas of the curriculum. 

The curriculum will motivate children to become independent writers by:

• Enabling them to communicate in writing clearly, confidently and appropriately, demonstrating an awareness of a variety of purposes and audiences. 

Providing opportunities to write in real-life contexts, with the children developing a range of strategies and skills that will enable them to function in society as literate adults. 

• Instilling a genuine love of writing and an appreciation of its value, so that children choose to write and are able to organise and structure a variety of texts, whilst developing their imagination and critical awareness. This will help to assist the children in becoming independent writers.

How is this vision for Writing to be achieved?

•  We will create opportunities for writing across all areas of the curriculum to make it relevant and meaningful and allow opportunities for application of skills.
• We will encourage children to write objectively and in an informed way on topics of current national interest such as climate change. 
• We will provide early opportunities for writing to develop with a keen focus on a range of necessary skills in EYFS.
• We will ensure that the teaching and learning of writing is consistent across the school, so further guaranteeing children’s progress.
• We will encourage children to develop a fluent and neat handwriting style at each of the stages of the writing process: planning, drafting, editing and re-drafting.
• We will encourage children to be proud of their writing ability and to show pride in their written work across all areas of the curriculum.

• We will immerse children in high-quality texts to expand and enhance their understanding of text types.
• We will discuss language and vocabulary used and create opportunities to include these in writing tasks.
• We will teach specific writing skills via quality modelling by both the class teacher and the Professional Partner in Learning.
• Errors in children’s grammar, both oral and in writing, will be both consistently and sensitively corrected
• Grammatically correct language will be modelled by staff
• EYFS and KS1 will deploy consistent teaching in phonics to support the development of accurate spelling. KS1 and KS2 will focus on spelling patterns and rules to support the encoding of words.
• Children will be taught grammar explicitly through Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar lessons (SPAG) and then embedded in Writing lessons.

How does the school know if the Writing curriculum has been effective?

Firstly, children who have followed the school’s Writing curriculum will be thoroughly equipped with the key skills, knowledge and vocabulary, to access the more specialised Writing curricula at KS1, KS2 and Secondary school. Furthermore, the emphasis on editing in Writing will have prepared children to thoughtfully evaluate what they have written and re-draft where applicable.

Our Writing curriculum will develop competent writers who can eventually function effectively as literate adults in society. Some children may even eventually be so inspired as to become professional writers themselves across arrange of different careers.

•  Learning objectives for each lesson will be stamped as ‘achieved’ or ‘working towards’.
• Writing bookmarks will be updated by class teachers to indicate evidence of success.
• Writing bookmarks will inform the identification of writing bands, completed every half term as part of Pupil Progress Meetings.
• Teacher’s Wishes (updated half termly) will focus on a skill achievement for each half term.
• Target Tracker is used to record progress and to carry out a statistical analysis of strengths and areas for development across the school.

• End of EYFS, end of KS1 and end of KS2 data statutory assessments and data is completed.

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