Intent

 

At New Park Primary School, we believe that all children should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing, thus writing is a fundamental part of our curriculum. We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. 

In addition, we want our children to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a consistent, joined, handwriting style. We believe that all effective writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. 

With regards to spelling, teachers will show pupils how to understand the relationships between words, how to understand nuances in meaning, and how to develop their understanding of, and ability to use, figurative language. They will also teach pupils how to work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning. Pupils will be taught to control their speaking and writing consciously and to use Standard English.

 

Implementation

 

As we believe consistency and well-taught writing is the foundation of a valuable education, at New Park we ensure that the teaching of writing is purposeful, robust and shows clear progression for all children.  In line with the national curriculum (2014), we ensure that children in each year group are taught the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives required for their key stage.  

 

All children write daily, in an English session, and across the curriculum. 

Teachers plan writing based on the EYFS framework and ‘The Write Stuff’ by Jane Considine; these plans are linked the high-quality texts which show clear progression through the different year groups.  

 

Spellings: 

Spellings are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. Teachers use the Twinkl Spelling Scheme to support their teaching and to provide activities that link to the weekly spellings. Children are given spellings to learn each week and are given a spelling test the following week. 

When marking work, teachers identify up to three words that children have spelt incorrectly from within that child’s known ability and they write these in the margin for the child to practise writing three times. 

Grammar and Punctuation: 

Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons as much as possible. Teachers plan to teach the required skills through the genres of writing that they are teaching, linking it to the genre to make it more connected with the intended writing outcome. Teachers sometimes focus on particular grammar and punctuation skills as stand-alone lessons or lesson starters, if they feel that the class need additional lessons to embed and develop their understanding or to consolidate skills. 

 

English Lesson Sequence: 

Each year group have a yearly overview of the writing genres, both narrative and non-fiction, that they will teach. These have been planned to ensure correct coverage of the key genres as well as build on skills from year to year. Units will take between one and three weeks to complete, and the outcome of each unit will be an Independent Write which will be used to assess the pupil’s skills against the agreed writing objectives for their year. Every narrative unit is linked to a carefully chosen text that acts as a stimulus for teaching the identified text, word and sentence level features that children will be expected to include in their independent writing outcome for that unit. Non-fiction units of work are also taught through high-quality texts when appropriate. 

 

Handwriting

At New Park Primary School, we follow the, ‘Letterjoin’ handwriting scheme. Handwriting is taught explicitly in lessons and in context when the teacher models correct letter formation. In Nursery, Reception and Year 1, children are taught precursive letter formation which is a wonderful starting point for them as they move to a cursive style in Year 2. 

 

Assessment 

Teachers will use their teacher assessment to determine whether a child is working within age-related expectations, above or below. They will base their judgements on the quality of the independent write that pupils produce at the end of each unit. Assessments are moderated by the Academy’s moderation team at the end of each term.

 

Impact

 

Our Writing curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: 

• Children can understand and apply the fundamental principles of spelling grammar and punctuation in their writing; 
• Children can evaluate, improve and redraft their writing; 
• Children are responsible, competent, confident and creative writer’s; 
• A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates a progression of learning across the school; 
• Children develop an author’s voice; 
• Children communicate clearly using accurate grammar, punctuation, handwriting and spelling. 

Children will develop competence in transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing) at national expectation and at greater depth.