Writing at St Breock
At St Breock our aim is that every child can write in a manner which is clear, grammatically correct and engaging. Writing is a key life skill, so we promote daily opportunities for children to successfully write for a range of audiences and purposes. To ensure our youngest children get off to a flying start, our EYFS curriculum has emphasis on the gross and fine motor skills which need to be developed for writing stamina and fluency.
The children’s enjoyment of writing will shine in their bold vocabulary choices, careful presentation and clear understanding of what they are writing about. Additionally, they will use precise grammatical terminology to discuss and learn from the works of notable authors. This will allow writing to unlock achievements in their next steps of education and beyond.
How we Teach Writing
We teach writing using a variety of strategies to inspire our children's work. We take many principles from the Talk for Writing philosophy and combine these with other techniques and ideas. Children use drama and text-interrogation techniques, as well as spending time unpicking the technical features of the text type and investigating language and structure, using excellent written models. With all of these tools and techniques at their disposal, children are able to use high-level, quality literacy texts to inspire high quality writing.
Our children are provided with opportunities to craft a piece of writing over a number of days; this helps children build their writing stamina, implement the aspects of the writing journey and this gives them sufficient time to create a quality piece.
Our children are encouraged to edit and redraft their work, using a range of tools to support them in their work. We use a range of peer, teacher and self-marking where children use structured marking ladders and success criteria to assess their work.
Assessment is both formative and summative, with children being given a combination of written and verbal feedback to inform their improvements and next steps. Teachers will assess children's writing against the objectives of the National Curriculum and use these to inform their planning for each written topic. We expect knowledge and skills taught explicitly in English lessons to transfer into other subjects, so improving cross curricular writing standards and consolidating and deepening skills.
Spelling
Spelling is taught discretely throughout the whole school, and is reinforced in all subjects too. In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, the children’s spelling lists follow their phonic knowledge to reinforce and embed this. Moving on from phonics, children have lists based on spelling patterns following statutory word lists and patterns. The children make use of Spelling Shed to practise in class and at home.
Grammar
We teach Grammar in a variety of ways. Children experience whole-class daily Grammar sessions in-line with the National Curriculum during the first half of the autumn term. Furthermore, some English lessons will have a grammar focus when applying their understanding during the teaching of writing skills, particularly when looking at advanced punctuation, which has an impact on the meaning of sentences.
Handwriting
Handwriting is part of our daily lives. Time devoted to the teaching and learning of letter formation in the early years pays off as legible writing that can be produced comfortably, at speed and with little conscious effort allows children to attend to the higher-level aspects of writing composition and content. It is also a movement skill and one which is best taught directly by demonstration, explanation and rehearsal. We make sure that our children have lots of opportunities to develop their core strength, so supporting the development of gross, then fine, motor skills. Below is the rhyme we use in EYFS and KS1 to teach pencil grip.
