Writing

Intent

At Sowerby Primary Academy, we strive to help our children develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well-equipped with the basic skills they need to become life-long
learners; English learning is key in this. We aim to ensure all of our children develop a genuine love of language and the written word, through a text-based approach; this links closely to the way we teach
reading, as the text that we use in writing lessons, where possible.

Careful links are made across the curriculum to ensure that children’s English learning is relevant and meaningful: where possible linking our reading, writing and topic. We ensure that children develop an understanding of how widely writing is used in everyday life and, therefore, how important and useful the skills are that they are learning.

Our intentions in writing are for children to:

• Write for a purpose
• See themselves as real writers
• Take ownership of their writing
• See writing as an interesting and enjoyable process
• Acquire the ability to organise and plan their written work  

Implementation

Our writing curriculum is delivered through high quality texts around a theme.  The themes are the context for a series of lessons over 3 weeks. 

The writing sequence is

Week 1 Collect - Look at the genre and the structure, vocabulary and organisation of the particular text type.  Look at lots of examples of texts, unpick features and begin to plan ideas f or their own writing.

Week 2 Connect- Make links with their own ideas and the writing.  Guided and supported writing to plan draft and edit

Week 3 Create - Taking all the knowledge and skills and be able to apply these to their own writing in a sustained and independent way.  Editing and re-drafting for purpose and audience.  Publish their work for an audience to read.

In Early Years pupils have daily opportunities to write within the provision as well as daily phonics lessons to learn to segment to write.

In KS1 pupils have daily spellings, grammar and use Talk for Writing approaches to support this 3 C's sequence.

In KS2 pupils have daily spellings, grammar and use the 3 C's to Collect connect and create.

We ensure that writing covers a broad range of genres and across a range of curriculum areas.

Assessment

Independent published writing is used for assessment.  There are at least 12 opportunities for this through published pieces.  These take pride of place on display around school to inspire other writers and motivate them to value presentation and handwriting. 

Writing is moderated by the LA and Elevate Trust partners in other schools.  We are fortunate to have a KS1 and KS2 writing moderator for the LA at Sowerby Primary Academy.

Impact

Assessment in writing is ongoing as teachers carry out in-depth assessment of children’s writing at the end of each unit, and highlight the age-related outcomes that have been achieved.

Children are tested termly on spelling, grammar and punctuation knowledge (Rising Stars Assessments) and this data is used to inform next steps for writing.

Insight is used to analyse gaps in children’s knowledge and gain an overview of specific groups of children across school.  These are discussed in termly Pupil Progress Meetings.

Progress across classes is closely monitored by the subject leader and senior leadership team. Monitoring will include: regular book looks, lesson observations, gathering evidence of good practice, pupil voice interviews and regular learning walks.

The findings of this monitoring will be used to inform next steps for the children and the implementation of writing across the school as a whole.

By the time children leave in Y6 they will:

• Make good progress from their KS1 results
• Have a love for writing and write for enjoyment
• Be able to produce written work in all areas of the curriculum to a high standard
• Be confident to write for a range of different purposes