writing
Intent
Our aim at Millfields Primary School is that every child in our school is inspired by different types of writing and can become a confident and enthusiastic writer themselves.
We want each child to appreciate the joy that good quality writing brings to the reader and understand that information can be shared in exciting ways which inspires the reader to want to find out more.
We aim to deliver engaging and meaningful writing sessions so that by the time they reach Year Six, each child:
Has the confidence and ability to write with fluency and develop their author’s voice.
Can consider the impact they want their writing to have on a reader and use a range of strategies to achieve this.
Has a sophisticated bank of vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to keep their readers interested.
Can structure and organise their writing to suit the genre and subject they are writing for and, when required, include a variety of sentence structures.
Has excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented, punctuated and spelled correctly.
Can re-read, edit and make both independent and suggested improvements to their writing.
Can appreciate that high quality writing takes place in all subjects in the curriculum and is not only the staple of the English lesson; that informative writing is key in all subjects; that reports, essays, biographies etc. take place in all areas of life. Even stories can be real and a part of Music, Art, PSHE, RE, Science, Geography and History, such as when writing biographies.
Has made as much progress as possible to reach their full potential and is ready to use these skills as they head into secondary education.
Implementation
We follow the National Curriculum (2014) and plan our teaching and learning from this to ensure we cover a broad and varied curriculum. We always aim to reach beyond what is prescribed in the curriculum so that the learning in our school is appropriate to the needs of our children and meets the needs of the community.
We have, in all subjects, developed ‘End Points’ which we want children to reach and these will support teachers with planning and assessment.
Each Year group has a list of outcomes or ‘End Points’ which need to be met by each child to be considered as working at expected for that year group. Teachers use these End Points to plan, teach and assess the knowledge and skills needed for children to progress in each subject.
Children are expected to develop good quality writing in all subjects and use the appropriate subject-specific vocabulary in their writing. Lessons are taught in both specific and cross curricular ways so that specific subject knowledge can be covered and children can create high quality writing within all subjects.
Children are expected to be writing on a daily basis, for a range of purposes and subjects. Writing is taught to be progressive and develop greater skill.
Handwriting skills, grammar, spelling and punctuation are taught discretely, in each class, on a regular basis; children are then supported to use and apply these skills to their writing until they are able to do this independently.
Each subject has an exercise book assigned to it where high quality writing specific to that subject can be recorded – such as a biography of an artist as they study a style or art type in Art. Writing will be taught, recorded and assessed in all of these books, not only English books.
Impact
The impact of a consistent approach to the teaching of high quality writing is that every child will achieve good to excellent progress, according to their individual needs. Each child will identify themselves as a writer, with growing respect with their own ability, resilience when something is difficult, and a greater ownership and positive mind-set with what they can achieve.
This progress will be evidenced throughout children’s school books and through conversations with pupils.
Writing Leader - Mrs Rachel Smith
Writing Link Governor - Mrs Katie Moore
Part of the Languages team.