ENGLISH - WRITING
Writing
at
Kirkby C ofE
Implementation
How do we deliver Writing at Kirkby CE?
Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy Counts to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations.
Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and purpose. Through the use of high-quality, vocabulary-rich texts, we provide exciting and meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature and taught to craft their writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as regular opportunities for editing.
We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly before writing them down.
Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic writers, ready for the next stage of their education.
At Kirkby CE we:
- Teach English on a daily basis across the school
- Adapt our planning to the needs of our classes
- Moderate our pupils’ writing within Key Stages and local cluster schools
- Use high quality texts to plan
- Use Assessment for Learning and encourage our children to be active in reviewing the successes in their work and identifying areas for improvement
- Celebrate children’s progress in writing using the ‘POP wall’ in each classroom and Writer's of the Term
- Use a range of teaching approaches to excite and enthuse pupils (see tab below)
Take a look at our work on the twitter hashtags to see examples across all year groups.
#KCEWriting
#KCEOracy
#KCEEnglish
Grammar and Punctuation
Grammar and punctuation is taught in every English lesson, either as the focus of the lesson, or as part of the writing process through daily sentence accuracy. English lessons also provide an opportunity to embed punctuation and grammar skills through modelled and guided writing.
Daily SPaG lessons are taught across KS2.
There is an expectation that grammar and punctuation skills will be demonstrated across the curriculum and concepts applied.
Spelling
At Kirkby C of E we follow the Spelling Shed spelling programme. The children in Y2- Y6 partake in weekly spelling activities. Homework is set online and can be accessed at Spelling Shed.
The assessment of Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar is ongoing as children have opportunities to respond to marking, make changes and discuss with class teachers.
Interventions are provided where necessary to support children who may have gaps in spelling knowledge or need additional challenge or support.
Speaking and Listening
Speaking and listening opportunities in all subjects enable pupils to practise correct grammar in the form of recounting stories and information and constructing sentences effectively. This in turn will impact on children’s ability to write using correct punctuation and grammar and is intended to develop the ‘writing voice’ of all children throughout school.
Handwriting
At Kirkby Church of England Primary School we are proud of our pupil’s handwriting and take care with our handwriting style.
Pupils are encouraged to develop correctly orientated letters from an early age with many creative opportunities to develop gross and fine motor skills utilised daily across Early Years. Letter formation and handwriting is taught and modelled using a range of resources from both RWI and ‘Letterjoin’. Letters are taught in groups according to their formation, curly caterpillars, one-armed robots,long ladder letters and zig zag letters. Pen licences are given to children in key stage 2 who display a consistent fluent joined handwriting style. This can be revoked if handwriting deteriorates. All handwriting pens have black ink only.
Letter Formation
Assessment
Children are assessed using the End of Year Expectations for each year group which can be downloaded below.
Impact
The impact of a high quality English Writing curriculum will be:
- Children will develop a love of writing and be well equipped for secondary school and beyond
- Children make good progress from their own starting point
- Children will acquire a wide vocabulary and use this across the curriculum both orally and in written work
- To enable more children to achieve age related expectations and beyond.
- Parents and carers will have a good understanding of how they can support spelling, grammar and composition at home, and contribute regularly to homework
The impact on our children will be: confident and passionate writers, clear progress, sustained learning and transferable skills.
Useful Writing Websites and Resources
SPaG exercises and animations for KS1 and KS2
A handwriting website used across KS1 and KS2
Access weekly spelling assignments here