Writing
Writing at Cale Green Primary School
At Cale Green Primary School, we want all of our pupils to be capable readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other curriculum subjects and who are prepared for the next steps in their education.
As we believe consistency and well-taught English is the bedrock of a valuable education, we ensure that the teaching of writing is purposeful, robust and shows clear progression for all children. In line with the national curriculum, we ensure that each year group is teaching the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives required for that age groups.
As well as teaching the objectives, teachers are able to embed the skills throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities and ensure that most children are achieving the objectives at the expected level and that some children can achieve at a greater depth standard. Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. We teach our pupils to speak clearly, to convey their ideas fluently and confidently and to ask questions; the use of Tales Toolkit in the Early Years and Talk for Writing activities from Reception to Year 6 supports this. We know the value of excellent vocabulary and this is developed and practised across our curriculum constantly.
To further support the National Curriculum from Reecption to Year 6, we follow a whole school mastery approach through incorporating the programme Pathways to Write. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repitition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided. Many opportunities for widening children's vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approcah and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
We also use Talk for Writing to encourage pupils to express their ideas, discuss their ideas and to develop more sophisticated vocabulary.
Our pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure and to read widely through our reading scheme and school library. We use Letters and Sounds for our phonics programme. Phonic awareness helps the development of reading by segmenting and blending sounds and the children will be heard reading regularly, both individually and in groups. Our guided reading sessions cover a wide variety of both fiction and non-fiction books and help to advance the children’s comprehension
skills. Parents are given reading guidance and clear expectations about reading at home.
We develop writing skills so that our children have the stamina and ability to write at the age expected standard. To support children in moving towards independent writing we provide a wide range of activities including the use of film and imagery, music, ICT, modelled, shared and guided writing, peer assessment and discussion. We provide varied and exciting opportunities for writing for purpose and we encourage pupils to see themselves as authors and poets. We promote the importance of written work by providing a writing purpose and opportunities for children’s writing to be read aloud and listened to by an audience.
Writing is taught through the use of a quality text, which exposes the children to inference, high-level vocabulary, a range of punctuation and characterisation. Each text is purposefully selected in order to promote a love of reading, engagement and high quality writing from each child.
Handwriting sessions are regularly incorporated into the English lessons. We have developed a range of extra activities which are used to promote English within the school including regular writing tasks, World Book Day and author visits.