Writing
Intent
At Grove House, we aim for children to be confident, enthusiastic and creative writers who use writing as a tool to express themselves. The wide range of high quality, engaging texts used at Grove House ensures that all children are exposed to ambitious vocabulary and a range of different writing styles. We believe children should be given different purposes for writing to understand how the skills used in writing are beneficial for the wider world. At Grove House, we encourage children to take pride in their work and understand that writing is a journey; we learn from the best authors and understand that our work needs to be edited and refined to make it even better.
Implementation
Early Years
In Early Years we use Drawing Club to teach children the early conventions of writing. Drawing club is based around the Golden Blend of picture books, tales and animations. it involves a short period of Time Together as a whole class followed by time with children exploring their ideas and creativity that can be adapted to how teachers believe is best.
Drawing club allows children to:
- be immersed in the world of story
- learn a treasure trove of new vocabulary
- Develop creativity and imagination to show them that they are extraordinary
KS1
Writing is planned around a high quality, engaging text, which may be linked to the wider curriculum topic, or children’s interests. In Key Stage 1, there is a strong focus on the oral rehearsal of stories to ensure children learn the basic structures of stories. Through extensive practice of dictated sentences, children are able to practise essential transcription skills using phonics and spelling rules taught so far. Once transcription is secure, children are able to orally compose sentences in story telling areas, before recording them.
KS2
Writing is planned around a high quality, engaging text, which may be linked to the wider curriculum topic, or children’s interests. Other supplementary texts are used in writing lessons for children to analyse authors different styles and techniques and allow children to explore the link between reading and writing. Grammar, punctuation and spelling are taught within a context, allowing children to see the relevance of the skills they are practising. Children are given opportunities to practise these skills within short burst pieces of writing, as well as extended pieces of writing. Writing is scaffolded by the teacher and ideas are generated as a class; oral composition and shared discussions are at the heart of our writing lessons. This is because we understand that successful authors share ideas!
Challenging vocabulary is taught through our bespoke approach in both reading and writing lessons, and children are encouraged to apply newly taught vocabulary in their spoken language and written work.
Spelling rules are matched to the National Curriculum and Spelling Shed is used for children to practise spellings both at home and in school.
All classrooms have a writing area. This is an area where children are able to write for pleasure and practise the skills which they have learnt in their writing lessons.
Our Long Term Plans for writing are shown below:
Year 1 – English LTP
Year 2 – English LTP
Year 3 – English LTP
Year 4- English LTP
Year 5- English LTP
Year 6 – English LTP