St Augustine's Catholic Primary School

Intent

At St Augustine’s Catholic Primary School, we want all children to be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing and reach their full potential.

Our aims are:

· We want every child to have a good knowledge of phonics to springboard children to becoming fluent writers.

· To guide and nurture each individual on their own personal journeys to becoming successful writers.

· To provide exciting writing opportunities and experiences that engage and enhance all pupils.

· We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary and to be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school.

· We want pupils to have a solid understanding of grammar and apply it effectively to their writing.

· We want pupils to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.

· We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a legible, cursive handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school.

· To plan a progressive curriculum to build upon previous teaching, with regular assessment to ensure each child’s needs are met to reach their full potential.

Implementation

Writing is taught throughout the week across the whole school. Each class studies a different high-quality text, lasting from a few weeks to a whole term depending on text type, length and year group.

Planning and the use of progression maps ensure that a variety of genres are progressively taught and built upon both throughout the year and throughout the school.

Writing is also a key focus in the wider curriculum, such as in History and Geography lessons when appropriate. Children are given the opportunity to transfer and build upon their knowledge of a genre studied during English lessons and apply this learning to a topic focus.

Through the writing process, children will acquire and learn the skills to plan, draft, revise, edit and publish their written work over time and are encouraged to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing.

Within each unit of work, sequenced lessons ensure that prior learning is checked and built upon and that National Curriculum objectives are taught through a combination of approaches/opportunities such as:

· Opportunities to participate in drama & spoken language activities.

· Exploring the features of different text types and modelled examples (E.g. Spotting features in a WAGOLL – What a good one looks like)

· Handwriting practise

· Vocabulary practise

· Shared writing (modelled expectations)

· Discrete Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar lessons

· Independent writing

· Planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing

· Performing

Impact

The impact on our children is that they have the knowledge and skills to be able to write successfully for a purpose and audience. With the implementation of the writing sequence being established and taught in both key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and have the ability to plan, draft, revise, edit and publish their own work. By the end of key stage 2, children have developed a writer’s craft, they enjoy sustained writing and can manipulate language, grammar and punctuation to create effect. As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards have also improved and skills taught in the English lesson are transferred into other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific language, grammar and punctuation.