Writing
At Bloxwich Academy Primary, we teach writing to inspire and motivate our children to become competent writers, as it is a skill that is required to meet the demands of everyday life - to construct job applications, letters, emails, making lists and notes, participating in social media, just a few of the day-to-day tasks of being a member of the civilised world in which we live. Our children are taught the skills daily that are necessary for them to be able to communicate effectively in the written form.
Intent
At Bloxwich Academy Primary, we understand the importance of all children becoming competent writers, as it is a skill that is required to meet the demands of everyday life - to construct job applications, letters, emails, making lists and notes, participating in social media, just a few of the day-to-day tasks of being a member of the civilised world in which we live. Our children are taught the skills that are necessary for them to be able to communicate effectively in the written form. Our approach to the teaching of writing enables the children to understand the range of thought processes they need to go through when constructing their writing, including ideas, plans and drafts, spelling and grammar. We also teach our children the importance of proof reading and editing their work so that they ensure they are communicating both effectively and coherently with their intended audience. It is essential that our children develop a love for writing and an appreciation of its educational, cultural and entertainment values
Implementation
At Blowich Academy Primary, we recognise that our children need to be confident within a range of skills, including grammar, spelling, handwriting and in creating and developing ideas. The children also need a rich vocabulary and to understand how to use this appropriately depending on the context of their writing. We teach children to be able to write fluently about a range of topics, including cross-curricular and the children are always given a purpose upon which to base their writing. The children develop a growing understanding of the ingredients (Language and Structural) for different writing genres and understand how to organise and structure them using a range of sentence types. We encourage the children to understand the importance of presenting their work to a high standard and we offer a pen licence to those children whose handwriting meets these expectations (all children within KS2 are expected to achieve a pen licence). The children are encouraged to write imaginatively. engaging the reader and use a wide range of vocabulary appropriately, within their work. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are key to a writers' success and these skills are firmly embedded within the whole writing process.
The writing journey begins with a Planning Overview that is prepared by the teachers and considers all of the different elements that the children need to be taught/need to be able to do in order to write competently within that particular genre. The children are then given the opportunity to annotate and evaluate some good examples of that genre and create a list of ingredients that they can then use within their own writing. These ingredients are organised into structural features and language features. Effective modelling is key to the children's success and we expect all of our teachers to model and use the 'Talking Out Loud' strategy so that the children understand the thought processes that they need to go through at each stage of their writing. Daily sentence level activities are used to further embed different sentence structures and uses of punctuation/spelling. Sentence Ladders are displayed in every classroom and as a bookmark for every child. The children are expected to focus on appropriate sentence types for the specific genre and, as they become competent writers, use varied sentence structures independently within their own writing. It is imperative that the children understand the need for proof reading and editing. At Bloxwich Academy Primary we use a 'Think Pink' editing pen, which the children will use daily and a
'Purple Polish' pen to re-edit once their work has been marked.
Monitoring
Formative assessments take place throughout the year and inform the teachers of the next steps required in their children's learning. Summative assessments are made at the end of each term. All assessments are discussed at Pupil Progress meetings with SLT every half term. Learning Walks are used to monitor the effectiveness of teaching and the use of the Working Wall as a teaching aid for the children for each unit of work. Lesson observations, book trawls and pupil interviews triangulate the data and support the teacher judgements made.
Impact
Our intention at Bloxwich Academy Primary is that every child leaves ready to progress further within their learning journey. They have become competent writers, being able to write for a range of purposes. They can construct sentences coherently and can recognise for themselves grammatical errors. Our children are confident spellers and when faced with unknown words, have strategies in place to spell these words. They can communicate effectively using English as a written language and they can manipulate their vocabulary choices for effect. There is an understanding of the need to be able to write both formally and informally and the children use these skills appropriately. They can select the appropriate tool for their communication, for example handwritten or typed and will have developed their own legible style. Our children leave the Primary Phase with an ability to write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, ready to compete in the wider world.
