Writing | How we do it

At the beginning of our journey, we inspire children to write by immersing them in stories through our Storybook Curriculum. This allows our children to internalise the structure of high-quality texts.  Children become confident in imitating the language they need orally, before reading, imitating and then retelling the story in their own way. We believe that through mastering the core skills, children are able to form a secure foundation on which to build upon as they progress through school. With this in mind, from Reception to Year 1, we minimise the different factors that children need to think about when writing, so their working memory is just focusing on the core skills to become a fluent writer. Careful consideration has been taken in choosing the texts that underpin the teaching of writing across school to ensure that the texts shared with the children are: high quality, accessible yet adequately challenging, rich in language, diverse, and enjoyable.

From Year 2, we motivate and engage children to write through our Mini Adventures. Mini Adventures are cross-curricular, which makes writing opportunities meaningful and purposeful, and allows children to acquire a deeper level of understanding.  It also ensures that key English skills are embedded throughout all areas of the curriculum, as opposed to just during English lessons. At the beginning of each Mini Adventure, the children’s imagination is ignited through the use of ‘fascinators’, which we use in order to immerse the children into an environment that links to their writing focus. We regularly provide first-hand experiences for our children in the form of trips outside the school setting. From Wonderland to Llandudno Beach in KS1; to The National Space Centre and Harry Potter World for KS2, the children at Willows are never short of things to say when it comes to their final writing piece!

Careful consideration is given to the sequence of lessons that build toward a piece of writing, which showcases pupil’s acquired knowledge, skills and understanding within a unit of work. The teaching of spelling, punctuation and grammar is integral, and is always taught in a contextual and meaningful way so that children are empowered to use their skills and knowledge to enhance their writing. Before each writing opportunity takes place, a deconstruction lesson takes place to highlight the grammatical skills most pertinent to the text being taught. We then teach these fundamental skills to mastery and achieve this through revisiting skills during retrieval practice. We use high-quality modelling and small steps to demonstrate how to children how to apply skills that have been taught, as well as giving our children strategies to engage and hook the reader.  For each writing unit, the children are exposed to high-quality modelling throughout. Teacher modelling is gradually phased out into slow writes, shared writes and independent writes so that the children become increasingly more empowered to apply the skills at their disposal confidently and resiliently.  Children are always given the opportunity to plan their writing using the success criteria that has been outlined when writing independently so that they can organise their ideas coherently for the reader.

Our children understand that as ‘authors’ they need to self-regulate and identify their areas of improvement. Within skills lessons, self-regulation is scaffolded through our streamlined marking system, which encourages the children to develop their metacognition and rectify their own mistakes with increasing independence. At the end of every writing opportunity, children are encouraged to edit, improve and evaluate their writing through the use of whole-class feedback or editing stations. Once children have been given the opportunity to edit and improve their writing, teachers will set a ‘Next Time’ target for the children based on areas they may be lacking as identified from our assessment process. It is then expected that the children will be given adequate support and opportunity to practise in order to be successful in achieving their target during the next writing opportunity.

There are always opportunities to practise speaking and listening within lessons, as we recognise that developing the skills of speaking and listening are integral to creating confident communicators.

Spelling |
How we do it

Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words. Our phonics progressions outline the order in which each sound from the National Curriculum should be taught. Dedicated time is allocated during phonics sessions for children to write down words with the corresponding grapheme linked to the phoneme they are learning. Children then take home spellings, which include the graphemes (written  form of sounds) that the children have been learning within their phonics sessions in school, as well as tricky words. Application of taught graphemes is also encouraged during storytelling and writing sessions through specific modelling. Sound family word mats are used to encourage children to self-regulate if they use an incorrect grapheme at their level.

In KS1 and beyond, the children are also taught spelling rules alongside the graphemes outlined within our phonics progression, as dictated by the National Curriculum. The teaching of spelling rules at Willows is both fun and contextual. Rules are taught explicitly within dedicated lessons, and then reinforced through fun and purposeful games, which allow the rules and words to be stored into the long-term memory. Our phonics and spelling progressions outline the order in which each spelling rule from the National Curriculum should be taught, as well as how long should be spent on each rule, dependent on its complexity. Practice of spelling rules is encouraged both in school and at home through use of our ‘Spelling Superstar’ booklets and homework games. Teachers specifically model the spelling rules that children are learning within their modelled writes. Once the children have been taught a word, rule or grapheme, it is expected that they should apply their knowledge and skills to their writing. Where they do not, feedback and support is given to encourage the children to edit their work.

Statutory words as outlined within the curriculum are taught during our ‘Word of the Week’ sessions. During these sessions, children are explicitly taught the meanings of these words in context, and given lots of strategies for retaining these words. It is our strong belief that children should understand the words they are practising spelling if they are to use them in context within their writing and everyday vernacular.

Handwriting |
How we do it

Effective writing also depends on fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy handwriting. Handwriting takes a progressive approach throughout the school.  We use the Nelson Handwriting Programme to underpin our teaching in school, and regular handwriting sessions are explicitly taught each week. When a letter formation is taught, it becomes non-negotiable. Every effort is made to prevent significant faults becoming ingrained habits so teachers address misconceptions in all writing by circling the mistake and getting the child to correct it, which encourages children to become responsible, independent learners who can self-regulate to improve their work.  Teachers have high expectations of presentation, which in turn provides children with a desire to have high expectations for themselves. Children take great pride in their work.