Writing at Randwick

You can make anything by writing – C.S, Lewis

At Randwick C of E, we recognise that writing is integral through all paths of life as a means to communicate with oneself and others. We strive to motivate and develop every single child to become primary literate and progress in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening whilst also supporting our pupils to become confident and independent writers who have access to the required tools for life alongside.

Through our writing sequence our young writers will develop their understanding in genre specific features, grammatical features and cursive handwriting and apply these within their writing across a range of genres including stories, recounts and reports. We further believe that purpose and audience play an integral role in the approach to writing. Learning opportunities are carefully planned to allow children to appreciate the relevance of learning to write in a variety of genres and to tailor their skills accordingly.

At Randwick we strive to instill a love of writing through fun and enjoyable activities. We believe immersing students in topics, stories and places. You can only write effectively about what you have experienced and our writing seqeunce reflect this.

We believe in reasons for writing and we never ask children to write just because… we write to real people, we persuade real people, we publish stories and do things for a reason!

 

Writing including Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

In line with the new national curriculum, we ensure that each year group is teaching the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives required for that age group.  As well as teaching the objectives, teachers are able to embed the skills throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities and aim for all children to achieve the objectives at the expected level and that some children can achieve at a greater depth standard.  In this sense, assessment of writing is also more fluid as teachers can assess against a set framework. 

In order to expose children to a variety of genres which helps to utilise and embed the writing skills, teachers use a variety of recommended texts to plan, structure and teach their English lessons.  This plan is designed to show progress, teach the pertinent year group objectives, apply and consolidate these skills and develop vocabulary.  Writing is taught through the use of a quality text, which exposes the children to inference, high-level vocabulary, a range of punctuation and characterisation.  Each text is purposefully selected in order to promote a love of reading, engagement and high quality writing from each child.

The Writing Sequence

Grammar find it and use it

Children are introduced to the grammatical concept whilst looking at a high quality model text. They will identify the grammar within a text which shows them how to use the grammatical concept in their writing. Following this, the children will have an opportunity to begin to use the concept in isolated task such as adding to given sentences our building sentences by themselves.

Grammar apply it

Children are given a writing task that provide them with the opportunity to practise applying their knowledge of the grammatical concept that has been taught and reveiewed at the beginning of the week.

Modelled, Shared Write

The children study the genre of focus understanding key features, the purpose of writing and who their audience will be. All children have opportunities to develop their writing alongside a model of high quality writing modelled by the teacher; alongside this the children practise writing in the genre through guided writing tasks. The children are scaffolded in many different ways to support progress for all pupils.

Independent Write

Children apply all of the genre specific skills they have been taught alongside the grammar taught so far to showcase what they have learnt. As we write we use classroom working walls which are full of the elements of writing we are focusing on from adjectives to the correct use of a semicolon. (The progression maps below will let you know what skills your child will be focussing on each half term)

 

Spelling

We have chosen to use Jane Considine spellings approach to support our teaching of spellings. This has provided us with a comprehensive approach that targets reading patterns of spelling, the pressures of spelling and the remembering of spelling. A system that is based on strong phonics teaching with a focus on teaching pupils the connections between words, sound associations, etymology and patterns.We have removed the accountability from the parents by moving to an approach that is classroom based. We have created lists for each year group that focus on one phoneme per week by analysing what the children are taught in KS1 and the spelling rules and knowledge required as per the National Curriculum in KS2.

 

Useful Websites and Resources for Parents

 Grammar and punctuation terminology explained:

Grammar_and_Punctuation_Subject_Knowledge (3).pdf

Picture and video stimulus for writing at home:

www.pobble365.com

www.literacyshed.com

Other useful websites:

home.oxfordowl.co.uk/english/primary-writing/

www.topmarks.co.uk

www.crickweb.co.uk

Apps for supporting teaching of handwriting at home:

www.theschoolrun.com/best-handwriting-apps-for-kids

Apps for supporting story writing at home:

www.theschoolrun.com/best-story-making-apps-for-kids

 

Files to Download

Student Login

STAFF LOGIN
PARENT LOGIN
SCHOOL BLOGS