Writing
Intent
At Wolverham, we know and understand our children: we have listened to our children’s voices, and we have created a curriculum that encourages them to become enthusiastic and engaged with writing. We love using high quality texts to support our reading and writing curriculum.
Writing is a crucial and fundamental part of our curriculum. All children from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum using a range of high quality texts and real-life experiences as a stimulus.
Our intention is for pupils to be able to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. To be able to do this effectively, pupils will focus on developing effective transcription and composition, along with an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. We also intend for pupils to leave Wolverham being able to use fluent and legible handwriting.
Implementation
- Early writing is taught through mark making. When the children begin learning phonics in Reception, they are taught the letter formations through our Little Wandle phonics sessions. This begins with writing letters, CVC words, high frequency words and then moving on to short sentences using the sounds they have been taught. Children are encouraged to write independently in the continuous provision.
- At Wolverham, we use ‘Pathways to Write’ from EYFS to Year 6 as the vehicle for teaching writing. This is to ensure a consistent and systematic approach to teaching skills of writing. Children already have key elements of the process embedded as they transition to the next year group.
- In every lesson, children are reminded of the skills they have already mastered through live marking and immediate feedback.
- With each unit of work, children complete writing tasks. Teachers use these to assess the areas of grammar, punctuation and text structure that the children in their class and year group will need to be taught.
- After the teaching of a unit, children are asked to write an end of unit piece. Teachers assess this and measure progress against the baseline assessment/non-negotiables.
- Teachers track and assess children’s progress in writing using the Literacy Company assessment framework for each year group; Y6 also use the TAF at the end of the academic year. Children in the Foundation Stage are assessed against the objectives outlined in birth to five and the EYFS profile.
- Grammar and punctuation is generally taught as part of the ‘Pathways to Write’ units through the model text and toolkits. Specific objectives may be taught explicitly in discrete lessons.
Overview of Pathways to Write (click here)