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English - Writing

Intent:
We believe that the skills encompassed within writing are vital for underpinning every area of the school curriculum. By the end of Year 6, we intend for our children to have developed a love of writing and to be able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through the written word. Teaching children to write can be very exciting, especially here at Manorcroft, where we provide a range of engaging hooks to capture their imagination. Our intention is to create writers who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing and have developed an awareness of audience, purpose and context and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.  At Manorcroft, we set high expectations for all our children to take pride in their work and have fluent, legible and speedy handwriting.

Implementation:
At Manorcroft, we use a ‘Talk for Writing’ approach as the vehicle for teaching writing.  This is to ensure a consistent and systematic approach to teaching the skills of writing across all cohorts.  This also means that children know what to expect when they transition year groups. As children get to Key stage 2, teacher modelling is reduced and children are encouraged to taught to draw on their imagination as well as a base text to plan their own pieces of writing. The content of the National Curriculum, 2014 and Early Years framework, 2021 has been carefully mapped to ensure that the skills learnt in spelling, punctuation and grammar are embedded and transferred into writing. We teach writing within and beyond the classroom as part of our commitment to outdoor learning.

In order to help us develop confident, enthusiastic writers who can express themselves in a variety of different styles and across a variety of contexts, the teaching of writing is linked to our projects. This strengthens children’s understanding of the foundation subjects, encourages children to make links in their learning and develops their understanding of vocabulary.  Lessons are carefully planned so that skills are taught, embedded, revisited and then developed in a sequential way which promotes learning and retention of knowledge and skills. Writing is also evident in every aspect of our curriculum and varying text types are taught throughout the school. Pupils are given a language rich curriculum and are encouraged and shown how to effectively use interesting and ambitious language in their writing.

High quality systematic teaching of synthetic phonics has a high priority throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. Phonics is taught daily for 30 minutes, following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme, to all children in Foundation Stage and Year 1. (see Reading intent statement)

We expect children to present their work neatly so Handwriting and fine motor skills are taught throughout the school. A progression document has been written to ensure that children learn correct letter formation and are starting to join their handwriting by Year 2. 

Impact:
Teachers at Manorcroft use a variety of summative and formative assessment as an integral part of the teaching and learning process.  These include:

  • Teacher assessment of writing using independently written pieces to provide evidence of national curriculum skills and understanding.
  • Monitoring of progress from year to year and key stage to key stage ensuring pupils remain ‘on track’ from their starting points.
  • Termly monitoring of books show clear evidence of the use of vocabulary, spelling, grammatical understanding, punctuation understanding and text type knowledge.

The subject leader regularly facilitates moderation within year groups and across phases to ensure that a consistent understanding of the expected/greater depth standard in each year group.

The impact on our children is that they have the knowledge and skills to be able to write successfully for a purpose and audience.  Through a ‘Talk for Writing’ approach, children will become more confident writers and have the ability to plan, draft and edit their work. By the end of Year 6 children have developed a writer’s craft, where they can manipulate language, grammar and punctuation to create effect.