Writing

Intent

At Barwic Parade we want all children to develop their skills in writing to be able to write easily, fluently and confidently for a range of purposes. We recognise that writing is an important tool in regard to communication and can provide children with more opportunities to elaborate and explain their thoughts, ideas and opinions on a subject. We want children to develop the habit of writing widely and often, for pleasure and informatively. We understand the importance of teaching and expanding children's vocabulary and want to ensure that we bring words to life for the children and encourage them to independently use them in their work. Writing of all kinds is something to be celebrated and we want children to take pride in their work. This is not just about work in English books, but involves writing across the whole curriculum, at home and in school. It is essential to us that we develop children's competence in the following areas: transcription (including handwriting, spelling, punctuation and grammar) and composition (including planning, drafting and writing, editing and evaluating).

Implementation

• From EYFS through to year 6, children are exposed to a wide range of high-quality poems, rhymes, stories and informative non-fiction writing.
• Texts are carefully selected, progressive throughout the school and make links to wider learning wherever possible.
• For fiction units of writing, Jane Considine’s Sentence Stacking approach is used to scaffold the writing process before independent writing takes place.
• Non-fiction units, book studies and poetry units are planned each term as specified in long term planning documents.
• From year 1 to year 6, SPAG lessons (spelling, punctuation and grammar) take place weekly following a separate long term plan. Opportunities for staff to revisit key areas of learning are included, dependent on the needs of the class.
• Editing takes place after all independent writing. Children from year 3 upwards will redraft and present at least one piece of writing per half term.
• Writing frameworks are included in all English books and are used as a tool for assessment, including self-assessment in older children.
• Classrooms are vocabulary-rich environments. Discrete vocabulary sessions take place twice a week across school, focusing on ‘tier 2’ words taken from Jane Considine’s vocabulary lists. Vocabulary is also incorporated in all other lessons across the curriculum, including subject-specific ‘tier 3’ words.

For specific information regarding handwriting, Spelling and Grammar, please see our policy below which outlines our approach in these areas.

Sentence Stacking approach

Beginning in key stage 1, narrative writing is supported through a Sentence Stacking approach. During these lessons, children focus on writing in 'chunks' to form an effective paragraph. Each 'chunk' of writing has a different focus (e.g. personification, subordinate clause, noun phrase) and is modelled by the class teacher using banks of vocabulary and ideas generated with the class. Children produce shorter but more focused pieces of writing and are able to be exposed to a higher volume of more sophisticated vocabulary.

We use a technique called the FANTASTICS which is an acronym to summarise the main focus of a sentence. They include Feeling, Asking, Noticing, Touching, Action, Smelling, Tastings, Imaginings and Checking. These 'lenses' allow the children to think about what they want to tell the reader with each sentence and what the best features or language choices might be, for example in a 'checking' sentence then onomatopoeia may be included to express sounds. Children who are confident with a particular focus during a lesson are encouraged to deepen their learning, adding their own details and features without moving the plot of the story forward. After working through a plot over the course of several lessons, children are then able to use the vocabulary, features and skills they have learnt to plan and write their own narrative about a topic of interest to them.

Impact

Teachers give constructive feedback on all pieces of independent writing in order to allow children to develop their skills as a writer. Children should be able to share with other adults what target they are working towards, in line with our marking and feedback policy. Books are moderated each half term across phases to ensure consistency and plan for the next steps to success. In addition, all classes at Barwic Parade take part in the No More Marking moderation alongside schools across the country. This data is used, alongside teacher judgement, to make accurate decisions about children's writing.