Writing
Writing at St George's School
At St George's School, children learn a love of writing and develop confidence to share and communicate their ideas effectively. It is our intent to develop proficient and confident writers, which will allow them to succeed in all areas of the curriculum. Using high-quality texts and carefully planned learning sequences, we develop confident writers who enjoy writing for a range of audiences and purposes across a range of genres, including narrative writing, non-fiction texts, poetry, playscripts and classic texts. We provide a stimulating and text-based English curriculum where all children enjoy learning, feel confident and motivated as they become increasingly literate. We support children to develop a wide and rich vocabulary which will ensure that they are able to communicate their ideas, both written and verbal, effectively.
Our Writing Curriculum
Our writing curriculum is designed to ensure that all children within our school community feel engaged, motivated and able to express their creativity and communicate their ideas. We regularly review our long-term plans and, as wonderful new texts are published, we update our core texts. We carry out regular Pupil Voice to find out the texts enjoyed by children and which they felt inspired by.
Our genre progression maps show how each year group will use text organisation, sentence features, grammatical features and punctuation. This ensures that learning is progressive across the school. Skills and knowledge are built upon each other in each unit of writing.
Sequence of writing at St George's School
At St George's school children follow a sequence of writing that is broken into clear steps that lead to a final outcome of writing for each genre of writing. Our Sequence is broken into 6 clear steps: analaysing the text, modelled/shared writing, planning, drafting, editing and publishing.
The process enables children to secure key writing skills for all genres of their writing. Children have opportunities to practise and apply skills in their writing before producing final outcome of writing.
Our Writing Subject Leaders have carefully created a clear progression across our school. The planned learning sequences, lay the foundations and building blocks for effective writing: oral rehearsal of language, generating ambitious vocabulary, developing grammar and sentence structure. We follow a clear progression of skills and knowledge from Year N to Year 6, ensuring that learning is built upon each year and that we are developing confident, resilient and independent writers.
Writing in EYFS
In EYFS children develop the foundations for writing to be built upon across their learning journey at St George's School. Children begin to explore making marks in our nursery, and putting meaning towards their marks. They are exposed to wide range of genes of writing and explore vocabulary in a language rich learning environment. Children are encouraged to develop their fine motor skills to prepare them to be writers! In Reception children begin use and apply their phonics skills to write simple words, phrases, and sentences. Children work towards acheiving their Early Learning Goals.
Purpose for writing
Children at St George's school write with purpose. Each unit of writing starts with an exciting hook to inspire children to write. Writing then leads to an exciting purpose to help children feel motivated and enthused in their writing purpose. Real-life application opportunities are given to child to develop an understanding of how writing is used in the wider world.
“The teaching of writing is effective when children see the use in it; when there is real, authentic purpose;when there is an audience that authenticates their voice, whether themselves or another reader. “ - Raising achievement in writing - CLPE
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Four Purposes of writing
-There are 4 main purposes of text types that all genres correlate with.
-Writing to entertain.
-Writing to inform.
-Writing to persuade.
-Writing to discuss.
Children develop an understanding of the 4 purposes for writing across their time at school. Children re-visit each purpose in a sequence of writing to have a clear understanding of why we write, and how writing is purposeful in the outside world.
The impact of our writing curriculum is assessed throughout the year, we use pupil voice, book looks, lesson observations and children’s independent writing samples are assessed against National Curriculum objectives. We also take part in writing moderation meetings with our local Primary Schools' (Tiptree and Stanway Consortium) Grammar and spelling is tracked termly and assessed using Target Tracker and Pixl.
Children leave St George's School as confident and expressive writers who have a love for writing and write for enjoyment. They are able to communicate their ideas, write for a range of purposes and audiences and channel their creativity in the written form, readying them for life after St George's!