Writing at The Pines

“If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all others: read a lot, and write a lot.”  Stephen King

Vision and Intent

Our vision is for children to become confident writers who are engaged in their writing. The skills taught and developed during their time at The Pines will improve their opportunities in the future.

We aim to:

• Produce extended pieces of writing for a variety of purposes.
• Consistently expose children to high quality spoken and written language which they are able to apply to their own work.
• Develop oral language skills so children can talk and write in grammatically correct sentences.
• Grow reflective writers who are able to edit and improve their own work.
• Explicitly teach the skills needed to produce great writing, including spelling and handwriting.

Our Curriculum Drivers are reflected through our Writing curriculum as it:

Develops their understanding of THEIR PLACE IN OUR WORLD by exploring stories from other cultures and writing for a range of audience and purposes

Gives children the skills needed in LANGUAGE AND ORACY so they are able to communicate 

Encourages children to improve their LEARNING SKILLS with opportunities to edit and improve their writing

Gives children the tools to be creative and encourages self-expression which supports our HEALTHY MIND driver

Implementation

At The Pines, we believe that every child is a writer. We are passionate about developing every child’s knowledge, motivation and confidence in their writing.   We have chosen HFL Education’s ESSENTIALWRITING as the basis of our writing curriculum for years 1-6. This is an ambitious and progressive writing scheme which provides our children with opportunities and tools to write for a range of specific purposes and authentic audiences. As a result, our children feel inspired and ready to write high-quality outcomes within the classroom but also have the knowledge, strategies and confidence to choose to write in their own lives. Each year group has 13-16 teaching units, all of which use diverse and high-quality literature as good examples of writing craft and to help to motivate or inspire children to write. ESSENTIALWRITING is fully aligned with the National Curriculum for English including writing composition, vocabulary, grammar & punctuation for each year group.  Each writing unit is progressively structured and centred around the different writing purposes: to entertain; to inform; to persuade and to discuss. The writing purposes are also progressively sequenced across the school (see table, below). 

Assessment 

• Grammar and Spelling is summatively assessed at least termly using PiXL.  

• Writing is summatively assessed half termly using Teacher Assessment, supported by internal moderation and external moderations. Teachers should use the year group expectation grids, based off of the national curriculum, to make their assessment. 

• For pupils working below the expected standards, teacher use Pre-keystage levels and previous year group expectations to make a judgement and assess the next steps for their learning. 

• Formative assessments are made daily and lessons adapted based on these judgements. 

Spelling

Alongside ESSENTIALWRITING, at The Pines, we have adopted ESSENTIALSPELLING as the basis of our spelling curriculum. ESSENTIALWRITING supports our children to apply this learning in context and build their spelling confidence.  Writing models reflect age-appropriate spelling objectives and children are taught how to monitor the accuracy of their writing. 

Handwriting

It is the aim of The Pines that every child develops a fluent, legible style of handwriting.

• Capital and lower-case letters are taught to be used appropriately and the letter size should be consistent.
• We provide opportunities for children to develop, practise and perfect skills and provide targeted support to any child experiencing difficulty.
• Staff teach and model the Nelson font (see Appendix 3).
• In Foundation Stage, children develop hand eye co-ordination, gross and fine motor skills to support handwriting. Handwriting is implemented in EYFS as follows:
  • • Children use a range of tools to develop drawing lines and circles using gross motor skills e.g. swirling ribbons, batting balls, painting.
    • Children use a range of materials to develop fine motor skills e.g. wax crayons, markers, pencils, sponges, chunky brushes, cotton wool balls, shaving foam, finger paints, etc.
    • Children practice manipulative skills e.g. cooking, playing with constructions, threading and playing instruments.
    • Children use variety of tools and paper, indoors and outdoors for purposeful writing. e.g. role play, labelling, making cards.
    • Children physically develop the movements of letter shapes using gross motor skills (linked to music and sounds) to gain confidence with the basic movements and flow of writing.
    •  Children are introduced to letters in line with their phonics programme.

Key Documents