Writing
Intent
Our overall intention is to nurture and develop our six qualities of learning which enable all children to shine…for life! We nurture and encourage creative, kind and resilient learners who are reflective, inquisitive and determined in all they do. Our intention is for learners at St Levan to know more and remember more in all subjects by writing across the curriculum with purpose, appropriate language and accuracy.
To think like writers, learners at St Levan focus on our three subject specific characteristics which are:
Language
- I choose language to engage and excite
Purpose
- I adapt my writing style for different purposes
Accuracy
- I am accurate in my grammar, punctuation and spelling
These three characteristics are woven throughout our Writing curriculum and are built upon as children progress through the school. This ensures that children acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed, couched in concepts and language with which they have already become familiar. As children move through the school, they learn to write for an increasing range of purposes and the focus shifts from accuracy and the mechanics of writing, to language whereby children learn gradually more sophisticated means of engaging and exciting the reader.
Implementation
We provide an engaging, characterful and balanced curriculum for all.
Our inclusive curriculum is carefully planned to allow for progress for all pupils in our two mixed age classes. We recognise the challenges of teaching a progression within a subject to a mixed age class and, having undertaken our own research and consulted subject specialists and organisations, developed our own pedagogy and created what we believe is the best fit for our setting. With a commitment to the removal of barriers to learning and participation, we offer high quality teaching and appropriate differentiation to meet the needs of all. Using our rolling programme (see our Curriculum Offer page), we teach Writing through termly topics, linked to high quality texts. Our approach to teaching writing changes as children progress through the school.
Read Write Inc Phonics
Initially, children learn to write sounds and words following the Read Write Inc (RWI) systematic synthetic phonics scheme. This teaches children to hear the individual sounds in words to read and write them.
For early handwriting, letter formation rhymes help children associate the written letter (grapheme) with the sound. Children in Reception and Year One have daily RWI lessons as well as opportunities to develop their fine motor skills to support with early writing.
Once children have learned the mechanics of Writing, they learn to write for different purposes.
- To entertain
- To inform
- To persuade
- To discuss
We interconnect learning opportunities with an enriched environment to promote a love of learning and the outdoors.
We ensure children are supported within a kind and caring community which enables them to progress and flourish.
‘Writing at St Levan is fun because we can imagine and create worlds.’ – Year 6 pupil
‘I like writing because you can write whatever you want in free writing. I like writing about Minecraft.’ – Year 3 pupil
‘I like writing because you are exercising your finger muscles and it is fun exploring the words that mean the same thing. I like learning the spellings too!’ – Year 4 pupil
‘Writing is fun because when we do it then we can express our ideas in words and write stories.’ – Year 6 pupil
‘I love to write because it’s better than every other subject!’ – Year 6 pupil
‘I do joined up letters and I find it easy.’ – Year 2 pupil
‘I find writing hard but I kind of still get it right. I’m getting better.’ – Year 2 pupil
‘Writing in St Levan is fun because you learn new words, get to be creative and lose yourself in stories.’ – Year 6 pupil
‘I like writing because if it is free writing you can write anything! It was tricky to get able to join up my letters but once I could I felt so proud.’ – Year 3 pupil
‘I like writing and I especially like enjoy free writing because you can write anything you can think of!’ – Year 3 pupil
‘I love writing because in Puffins because you can think carefully about each word and you can enjoy making up stories.’ – Year 6 pupil
‘Writing is good because if you get something wrong, you can practise and practising is learning.’ – Year 2 pupil
‘It’s really good because it helps you work stuff out when you write it down.’ – Reception pupil
‘I like to write stories.’ – Year 2 pupil
‘Writing is really fun because, in free writing, we can write about whatever we want!’ – Year 4 pupil
‘Recently, we’ve been doing sentence building and how to build up our skills and choose our words really carefully. I liked writing the Mayan tour guides.’ – Year 6 pupil
Assessment
At St Levan, we use assessment in three different ways across all subjects.
Assessment for learning (AfL)
This assessment is formative, ongoing and informs classroom practice and future planning. Through careful observation, listening and questioning, teachers glean what learners know and can do and plan next steps accordingly. For example, in Writing, if a number of children in Year Four are finding it difficult to apply the Year One spelling rules when adding ‘ing’ and ‘ed’ to verbs by doubling consonants, the teacher will dedicate extra time to teaching this rule explicitly with additional opportunities to revisit and recall the rule across the curriculum.
Assessment as learning (AaL)
This assessment is about how pupils self-regulate their own learning and develop metacognitive skills. Through structured peer and self-assessment activities, pupils understand their own needs as a learner and reflect on their own next steps. By taking ownership of their own learning, this can help pupils to know more and remember more. For example, in Writing, pupils may self-assess against their WALTs and WILFs and tick what they can do before reading what their buddy has written and marking their learning too. This allows pupils to help each other identify their next steps and give feedback at the time in every lesson.
Assessment of learning (AoL)
This assessment is summative and is used to measure pupil progress throughout the year.
Statutory Writing assessments include:
- End of Key Stage assessments (known as SATS) in Years 2 and 6.
In May, pupils in Year Two and Year Six complete Writing (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling- GPS) assessment papers. To find out more about these assessments, please read the information below:
Impact
We aim for our children to be resilient, creative and kind individuals who are determined, inquisitive and reflective learners.