Writing

Writing

As a school, we have planned a robust, creative and engaging curriculum to deliver the National Curriculum writing objectives and ensure that each piece is purposeful and shows clear progression for all the children. Our writing tasks are linked to high-quality texts and are often cross-curricular, linking perfectly to the foundation subjects that children are also studying.

We have embedded elements of the Writing Framework throughout our curriculum, with a particular emphasis on sentence structure and foundational writing skills in EYFS and Year 1. This early focus ensures that children develop strong transcriptional and compositional foundations, enabling them to become more fluent and confident writers as they move into Year 2 and beyond. We begin children's exposure to writing through our Sounds Write phonics lessons, and engaging the children in 'Drawing Club' a highly motivational session which brings together skills the children have tackle in their phonics and handwriting sessions. In Year 1, we step up the focus on sentence accuracy, using Colourful Sematics to build accurate sentences, including elements such as coordinating conjunctions. There are high levels of oracy in these sessions, encouraging children to speak in full sentences and so to think in full sentences to aid writing.

From Year 2, children begin to tackle basic genres, using carefully crafted modelled writes and being taught specific lenses to help them structure their writing.

To ensure teachers are accurately assessing writing, staff review children’s writing against the year group objectives to build an ongoing picture of their writing ability. In addition to this, we regularly review independent writing as a whole staff and across the Acorn Education Trust to identify how we need to change our next unit of writing to meet the writers where they are.

Teachers have high expectations through teaching to the appropriate yearly objectives and set work appropriate to the needs of the children in their class. The structure of the lessons is carefully considered, including opportunities for returning to and expanding on prior knowledge, teaching, modelling and discussion to aid understanding and support children in their independent tasks.

We use the No-Nonsense spelling scheme that is taught daily, ensuring full coverage of all National Curriculum objectives in Key Stage 2.

Impact

It is our aim for every child to meet the expected standard and master the objectives set out in the National Curriculum programme of study and the Writing Framework. By the end of Key Stage Two, the children of Wansdyke are very familiar with a variety of different genres, and creativity with accurate grammar and punctuation skills can become the primary focus. By securing the foundational skills of writing early on, we give children the best opportunity to become confident and accurate writers by the end of Key Stage 2.

Writing-Policy.pdf

Handwriting

Wansdyke School have chosen to use 'Kinetic Letters' to explicitly teach handwriting to our pupils. 

Handwriting is of fundamental importance to educating our pupils because pupils who do not learn to read and write fluently and confidently are, in every sense, disenfranchised.  The mastery of automaticity in handwriting is therefore one of the key priorities of the School.

The outcomes that we will strive to ensure all our pupils achieve are:

• Having fluent, legible and speedy handwriting that can be performed automatically, so that the attention of the brain is on the content of the writing.
• Having the stamina and skills to write at length, with accurate spelling and punctuation.
• Having competence in transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition.
• Writing clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
• Having a comfortable and efficient pencil hold and working position.

The Kinetic Letters programme is commenced in Reception (or Nursery if relevant) and is used throughout the School.  By the end of KS1, each pupil should be working at the national standard and most should be working at a greater depth (see Appendix 2).  Children will be using some of the strokes needed to join letters; teaching this will start in Year 2.