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.

At our school, writing is seen as the skill that allows our children to communicate love of books and the world around them. We see writing as a subject in its own right (substantive knowledge) and as knowledge and skills that can be used to explore other subjects(disciplinary knowledge).Our writing strategy ensures all children are able to leave the Randwick as fluent writers who are ready for the next stage of their education. Our approach to teaching writing is an equitable one: we secure a research informed universal provision and additional ‘targeted’ academic strategies for those children at risk of underachievement. This way we can be sure that our writing strategy is built around ensuring children enjoy learning and succeed in life

Our approach to writing is built around core texts and quality talk. We know that writing starts with reading and oral language development. As soon as our children arrive at Randwick,we prioritise language development through Drawing Club. At this stage, we also prioritise the teaching of our Synthetics Phonics Programme (Bug Club Phonics). This ensures that our children have the knowledge they need to be able to write labels, captions and sentences in line with where they are in their phonics programme. Across EYFS, KS1 and KS2 our children will share carefully selected high quality texts linked to the school’s curriculum. These texts are carefully pitched using UKLA (UK Literacy Association) shortlist of recommended books, our 'Reading Spine' and research by The Book Trust amongst others. We provide children with opportunities to read a wide range of picture books, chapter books and graphic novels through our reading spine. However, our approach to writing uses picture books and animations that are linked to our wider curriculum in some way.

Writing including Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

In line with the 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.

Stop testing spelling and start teaching it.

The Spelling Book is not a scheme, it’s more a way of teaching spelling that relies on teachers to bring the ‘wonder of words’ to life. The Spelling Books provide structure and support, whilst allowing enough room for creativity, ensuring that all National Curriculum fundamentals are covered. The Spelling Book system exceeds all expectations around making the teaching of spelling effective, and ‘stick-able’ for children. This includes daily and weekly spelling activituies that are built on the fundamentals of teaching spelling with strong phonic foundations, and applying proven methods to increase pupil retention.

All of the concepts, activities and tasks are designed to increase ‘stickability’ and retention of vocabulary. The system is built on strong phonic foundations and includes a range of deep exploratory investigations, alongside short-burst ‘chunked’ revision activities.

The provision from Year 2 to Year 6 ensures pupils have a good understanding of a wealth of content and they are able to self assess and monitor their own strengths and weaknesses in spelling. Through using the quality materials and comprehensive guidance, children will develop expertise and fluency.

Handwriting

At Randwick Church of England Primary School, we are very proud of our pupil’s handwriting and take particular care in our handwriting style. We use Letter-join’s on-line handwriting resource and Lesson Planners as the basis of our handwriting policy as it covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum objective.
Handwriting is a basic skill that influences the quality of work throughout the curriculum. By the end of Key Stage 2 all pupils should have the ability to produce fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy joined-up handwriting, and to understand the different forms of handwriting used for different purposes. Our intention is to make handwriting an automatic process that does not interfere with creative and mental thinking.

Our intent for all of our pupils is that they will:
- Develop a neat, legible, speedy handwriting style using continuous cursive letters, which leads to producing letters and words automatically in independent writing.
- Establish and maintain high expectations for the presentation of written work.
- Understand, by the end of Year 6, the importance of neat presentation and the need for different letterforms (cursive, printed or capital letters) to help communicate meaning clearly.

All teaching staff are encouraged to model the printed or cursive style of handwriting chosen for each year group in our school in all their handwriting, whether on whiteboards, displays or in pupils’ books. Pupils should experience coherence and continuity in the learning and teaching of handwriting across all school years and be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their work. Our objective is to help pupils enjoy learning and developing their handwriting with a sense of achievement and pride.