Writing Intent - 2021
Love Jesus, Love Learning, Love Communicating
At St Joseph’s our intention is that our children will :
- understand and use writing as a form of communication
- experience writing with real purpose and real audiences; seeing how widely writing is used in everyday life
- experience writing being directly influenced by their reading and foundation areas of study
- use writing in a relevant and meaningful way to to apply knowledge and vocabulary to form connections between their learning and to investigate the world we care for
- develop a love of writing so as to express their thoughts, ideas and emotions clearly, creatively and imaginatively, appreciating written language as a way of connecting with others.
Writing Curriculum Implementation - 2021
- The context for writing is inspired by quality challenging texts which have been selected to inspire pupils’ learning in either geography, history or science
- Pupils experience poetry, narrative and non-fiction genres each half-term
- At the start of a unit teachers explore WAGOLL focussed on text structure and language content
- Our writing pedagogy is then based on the Hochman Method (Writing Revolution)
- Sentence strategies are used to teach the construction of ‘Alan Peat’ sentences
- The same activities can be used across year groups to learn increasingly more complex sentence construction
- Word level and sentence level skills are taught weekly
- Grammar and punctuation is taught within the context of sentences that are based on cross-curricular knowledge
- Children are given opportunities for oral rehearsal to practise the language they need
- Teachers model writing skills in each lesson including proofreading and editing to enable pupils to be able to confidently use all essential writing skills
- Spelling is taught using Oxford Owl programme - focussed on spelling rules and taught daily for 15 minutes
- Children complete a spelling test each Monday on the previous week’s spelling rule
Handwriting Implementation - 2021
- At St. Joseph's, EYFS and Y1 pupils are taught letter formation daily within RWInc lessons
- Teachers model and teach handwriiting using a cursive style in Y2 to Y6
- Children are taught these joins from Year 2, with all pupils having three ten minute weekly sessions.
- Handwriting is explicitly taught using the interactive program 'Letter Join' and then children are encouraged to practise their handwriting using weekly spelling sheet resources.
- If work is not presently neatly, teachers will speak to the children and elements of their work may need to be repeated.
Spelling Implementation - 2021
- In Foundation Stage and Year 1, spelling is taught through RWInc
- Spelling is taught using 44 sounds using ‘Fred talk’, ‘dots and dashes' and 'special friends'
- In Y2-Y6: Oxford Owl spelling is taught using the Oxford Owl programme
- The programme is focussed on a spelling rule which is taught daily for 15 minutes
- Pupils record written spelling activities in pupil books
- Spellings are also practised through handwriting tasks and tested weekly (based on spelling rules and NC spelling list)
- Children complete a spelling test each Monday on the previous week’s spelling rule
Intended Impact - 2021
- Impact is measured by attainment in writing being moderated using ‘No More Marking’ and cross Trust moderation activity.
- Children’s writing is assessed during national windows to take advantage of a wider pool of professional judgements. Also, Plymouth CAST schools jointly moderate pupils' writing.
- The statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage One and Two uses the teacher frameworks to assess children’s writing attainment