Writing

WRITING AT HARTHILL

Our writing curriculum enables children to:

•   Learn and apply spelling, punctuation and grammar rules

• See themselves as writers so that they are inspired to write creatively and factually for different purposes and audience

• Understand the importance of writing for communication

• See writing as something that can also be done for pleasure, leading to a lifelong

love of writing 

So that they:

• develop a strong sense of belonging with a good understanding of the wider world.

• are inspired to raise their ambition.

• grow resilience as determined and independent individuals.

• show kindness, respect and tolerance.

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Intent: Through our writing curriculum children, including those who are disadvantaged and those with SEND,  will make progress in their writing fluency, including their phonics, spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. Alongside this, they will be inspired to write for a range of purposes and audiences, drawing on their knowledge of different genres, and completing the process in manageable steps. They will learn how to make the appropriate vocabulary and grammatical choices to have the desired impact on the reader in order to engage, inform, entertain and persuade. SPAG will be taught explicitly, as well as the skills of both drafting and editing. High expectations are set for presentation and children are given lots of opportunity to publish their work for a range of purposes, including cross-curricular. Children will be encouraged and inspired to write for pleasure, including writing to support their emotional development and regulation.

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We intend to foster a positive writing culture by:

• exposing children to different forms of writing and the importance it has in our everyday lives

• children experiencing their teachers as writers alongside them in the classroom

• creating a learning environment where writing is promoted positively through the use of high quality learning walls and displays of published work

• planning writing sessions that capture the children’s interests and imagination

• having a dedicated session every day with a focus on the teaching or retrieval of spelling, grammar and punctuation rules

• emphasising the importance of good spelling behaviours through direct teaching, regular assessment and feedback and opportunity to practice and apply

• giving children a reason to write for different purposes and audiences

• using high quality model texts for the children to deconstruct and analyse the key features

• providing cross curricular writing opportunities

• encouraging a positive attitude to writing by giving children opportunities to engage in ‘writing for pleasure’ sessions regularly

• having handwriting sessions where letters and joins are modelled and then practiced explicitly, which are then reinforced in writing sessions

• implementing an assessment system which enables us to identify strengths and provide swift intervention where needed.

• ensuring children are aware of their progress and their steps for development through immediate verbal feedback

• fostering ambition in children to creatively write by providing opportunities to take part in school writing competitions

Implementation:

Through our writing curriculum children will:

-be scaffolded towards becoming an independent writer in EYFS and KS1 and build on this through to the end of Y6, preparing for the next phase of their education
-be taught to understand different genres of writing and their characteristics
-be able to modify their writing to meet different styles and audiences
-be taught to write effectively through the process of planning, drafting and editing
- engage in opportunities to ‘write for pleasure’ to promote a positive approach to writing
-build up stamina for writing
- have a strong underlying base of phonics to help with spelling
-be taught to draw on multiple sources of knowledge to become confident spellers, such as using known words, common letter strings, word structures and meanings. 

-publish their writing

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Impact:

The impact of our writing curriculum is demonstrated in the following ways:

- what children say (pupil voice and engagement with writing)

-what children do (performance in summative and formative assessment, editing stage in writing process, retrieval tasks, independent writing, published writing,  SPAG SATs, phonics screening check)

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