Writing at Meadowside School
Intent:
At Meadowside Primary School, we recognise the central importance of English to enable children to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. We aim to give our children the opportunity to play a full and active part within society and therefore view their development of language skills as an essential part of our school curriculum. We recognise the link between children’s reading and their writing and know that through picking the right literature and helping children to understand the skill of an effective and powerful professional author, teachers can support and enhance children’s developing skills as a writer in a meaningful and effective way. Teaching of writing at Meadowside encompasses a range of word, sentence and text level studies and aims to enable the children to have a voice, whilst adults support them to communicate and provide them with a skill that is vital for all of their schooling and to their life beyond.
Implementation:
We emphasise the importance of the written word, encouraging children to become confident, happy and enthusiastic readers so that they can become competent and enthusiastic writers, with all the benefits this brings. We want to deliver lessons that are creative and engaging, and that focus on the writing process as well as the finished product of a written text, to inspire children to become successful authors of their own pieces.
All classes put reading at the heart of their English curriculum, whether this be single sentences with clear meaning or the study of whole texts.
All classes embed the teaching of English Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar into a teaching sequence, and focus, where possible on the power that each of these skills has in enhancing the clarity and control one can wield over their written word. We look at how this needs adapting across a range of genres, including fiction, poetry and non-fiction. All classes have daily spelling sessions that teach some of the rules and analogy skills that must be utilised for accurate spelling. In EYFS and Key Stage 1, this focusses on the Letters and Sounds synthetic phonics scheme. This moves on to Spelling Shed resources for teaching patterns and common exception words from the end of Year 2 and throughout Key Stage 2. Years 2-6 will this year complete a weekly speed spell activity to develop the retention of common exception words as set out in the National Curriculum.
We utilise the CLPE Power of Reading model, which is rooted in classroom-based research stretching over a decade, for some of our English teaching sequences to ensure that we are teaching high quality lessons that emphasise the importance of books and literature to enable our children to become confident and competent readers and writers. Classes call this ‘book talk’ as they discuss and debate themes and meanings of a wide variety of texts. Children then are taught to utilise the effective words, sentences or literary devices that the published author has put to good effect, developing their own writing skills.
We understand that a well-chosen text provides rich language models and structures from which children can learn how writing works and the effect it can have on a reader. We want confident young writers, and so, read aloud and share high quality texts across a range of genres, reflecting a range of writing styles. Across the year, we choose texts that are rich in vocabulary, and enable children to comprehend beyond their own reading fluency level.
We strive to make strong links between the writing genre or text that we study with the focus of the foundation subjects that are being learnt in our ‘topic’ sessions so as to bring alive both the theme of the topic and to give the children’s writing a strong audience and purpose. Whether writing to a member of parliament or a book character, we know that children write best when we draw upon their knowledge and evoke their strong feelings for a character or cause!
We use a variety of resources to support our planning, teaching and learning, including CLPE Power of Reading/ Power of Poetry, Jumpstart literacy, No Nonsense Grammar and some teachers take part in the county scheme Reading Teachers: Reading Pupils that provides ideas and studies for both reading and writing. We use the common ‘Purpose, Audience, Form’ style of genre coverage and focus on a providing a variety of opportunities as the children move through the school.
Purpose
To Entertain
To Inform
To Persuade
To Discuss
Children in Key Stage 1 focus on writing to entertain and inform, whilst Key Stage 2 develop these and learn to persuade or discuss in written format. | Audience
We create a range of audience to whom our children can write. These could be real, fictional or historical characters! Some common examples are book characters, historical figures, staff members, peers, the general public and famous people (including members of the local council and parliament)
Most classes have the opportunity throughout the year to have their poetic works published by taking part in the Young Writers’ Competition. We regularly have winners, whose books can be found in our school library. | Form
We recognise the importance of oracy as much as the written word, and often use oral composition as a precursor to successful written pieces. Some examples of these forms are:
Puppet shows, retelling stories, describing objects or events, reciting poetry, debating issues and giving presentations.
These will often feed into written work that could include:
Stories (retold or reimagined), recounts of experiences, diary entries, newspaper reports, leaflets, adverts, informative reports, biographies and letters of persuasion or written arguments.
Where the purpose and audience are real, the final pieces are always displayed or presented to their intended reader. |
Classroom environment:
- Grammatical terms are displayed and referred to in a developing English Vocabulary display
- Key spellings are often collated in displays or personal dictionaries for children
- When teaching a Power of Reading teaching sequence, a working display is created, as set out in each teaching sequence, to collate and use effective literary techniques
Homework: Homework is provided for all children and takes the form of spelling/ phonics homework which aids writing fluency and word recognition/ understanding. These are supported by Learning With Parents. Some of which focus on ‘Book Talk’ and extending the children’s vocabulary. Learning With Parents work is sent home on a fortnightly basis.
Impact:
Research by the EEF reports that, at Key Stage 1, it is vital to teach children how to plan and monitor their writing effectively. This includes pre-writing activities, structuring text and combining sentences, whilst developing fluent transcription skills. At Key Stage 2, purpose and audience are central to effective writing- Pupils need to have a reason to write and someone to write for. Effective writers use a number of strategies to support each component of the writing process. Pupils should learn how, when, and why to use each strategy.
During our most recent Pupil Voice, nearly every child stated that they like writing and have a clear understanding of the importance of English punctuation, spelling and grammar. They talked confidently about what they write and how lessons help them to learn to write better. They said that they would like to know more about how genres differ and this will be our focus for the coming academic year.
Children talk confidently and enthusiastically about the books they are choosing to read and, in Year 5 and 6, how these help them develop their own style of writing and authors’ voice. In the most recent Pupil Voice, pupils talked confidently about the importance of reading in order to improve their own writing.
