Writing

Intent

At Altofts Junior School, we believe that writing is a key skill for life both inside and out of education and that is why Literacy is a key driver for our whole school curriculum. Wherever possible, it is linked to other curriculum areas and children are exposed to a range of text types. Our aim is to provide children with key transferrable writing skills to build upon year on year, that can be used throughout each phase of their education and prepare them for secondary school. We aim for children to:

· be given the opportunity to practice and explore the text types and content they are writing about before they produce independent work,

· express their unique ‘writing voice’ through the texts they write,

· choose words for effect to show purpose and audience,

· develop their understanding of the different types of punctuation as set down in the 2014 National Curriculum and understand the impact it has on the reader,

· learn how to spell key words accurately and apply them to their writing,

· develop their handwriting and presentation skills so that they produce pieces of writing they are proud of and that others can read.

Implementation

The majority of our writing curriculum is book-led as we believe reading is a key element in children’s writing skills. These books provide a stimulus for children’s English lessons. However, in order to help develop children’s imaginative writing, some videos are used as basis for a unit of writing. Throughout children’s time at Altofts, they have the opportunity to study a range of text types and to practise and develop these during each year group. They are introduced to challenging vocabulary, which is taught at the beginning of English lessons, and are given opportunities to develop their English skills orally, including drama activities, orally rehearsed sentences and reading aloud their own work.

Our writing sequence uses a book or video as a stimulus. The initial lessons in the sequence enable the children to become familiar with the features of the text type they will be writing and to gather knowledge/content needed. They then learn and practise grammar, punctuation and language skills and apply these to short pieces of writing. After this, they plan, write and edit their work; some pieces are published for display.

Impact

Pupils make good progress from their own personal starting points. By the end of Year Six, they are able to write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. Our pupils acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of the written word. Most importantly, they are starting to develop a love of writing and are equipped for the rest of their education.