Emscote Infant School
and
All Saints' C of E Junior School
Writing
Writing
Quality texts, storytelling and drama are at the heart of our teaching of writing in which we use a range of stimuli to support pupils to become independent writers.
Writing opportunities are carefully planned across the curriculum, with children required to write for a variety of purposes and audiences. Through a clear pathway of progression as they advance through school, children are provided with the knowledge and skills they need to develop in confidence and ability.
Writing skills fall largely into two categories:
- Transcription – Spelling and handwriting
- Composition – Articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing
Transcription
Developing ‘fluency’ in writing is one of the key drivers that we focus on in school. Children will learn to develop fluent handwriting and accurate spelling. Regular practise of handwriting and spellings will help your child to become faster and more accurate when writing – helping them in every area of the curriculum.
Spellings are taught through the Headstart programme, where focused investigation and spelling activities are based on strong phonic foundations. Children are set spellings on a weekly basis (as part of their homework and in-class work). These are tested on a Friday.
We expect high standards in handwriting as we believe fluid handwriting can support with spelling. Teachers model the writing process and demonstrate the ambitious high standards expected of all children.
Composition
Vocabulary is an important aspect of the English curriculum, with time taken to gather adventurous vocabulary in both writing and reading lessons. The texts chosen as stimuli allow children to be immersed in rich vocabulary.
Children are given frequent opportunities to participate in ‘talk for writing’ and drama activities, build on ideas through discussion and rehearse before writing;
Children are taught about the range of text types they will encounter; they learn to recognise the key features of different text types and implement these features, as appropriate, into their own writing.
Support for children who experience difficulties with writing:
Writing is a complex process and children can experience difficulties with different aspects; we aim to identify the underlying difficulty and provide support, either in-class or via carefully chosen intervention activities. These are examples of the support provided:
- Fine motor skills work for those who experience difficulties with handwriting fluency
- 1:1 phonic tuition to consolidate key skills in early spelling
- 1:1 intervention using Read, Write, inc (RWI) Get Writing – with a focus on grammar within sentence construction
- Talk for Writing strategies to help with generating ideas for writing
- Catch up tuition
The Write Stuff
Children in Years 3, 4 and 5 also receive specific teaching of writing techniques (for one unit each term) through an approach called "The Write Stuff" by Jane Considine.
The approach arms children with the knowledge and understating of what to write and how to write. Grammar, writing techniques and ideas are embedded in every single lesson, and revisited again and again to ensure that pupils become confident and adept writers.
Using "The Write Stuff" approach, an individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken in to 3 learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:
- Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.
- Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.
- Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.
Children are challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’ which requires them to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.
Please do contact your child’s class teacher should you require any further information, or have any questions about how you can help support your child.
