Writing

Vision

Literacy is at the heart of everything we teach. We aim to enthuse and inspire our children to become confident at communicating. We want them to develop enjoyment, in both written and spoken word.

The importance of writing

Children use their writing in almost all other subjects of the curriculum. Good writing gives children a voice to share their ideas with the world. Like all things worth learning how to do, learning to write is a process. We help children to develop their skills by understanding where they are in their development and encouraging them. Reading and talk are important in leading to writing and we include these in our daily lessons. By learning to write children can communicate with others. Our curriculum develops writing skills which enable children to adapt and interest readers in different contexts.

Writing at Seaford Primary School

We link writing with both our Learning Adventures and with key texts. Talk, role-play and reading all link to writing. Literacy plans show progression and a build-up of skills over 2-4 weeks using this process:

• Choosing high quality texts as a stimulus for writing;
• Using a three-phase approach whereby teacher-written models are studied, then used as building blocks for independent writing;
• Identifying the purpose for writing (to entertain, to inform, to persuade or to discuss);
• Building the skills for specific types of writing in clear, logical and manageable steps;
• The teachers build on skills that they want the children to use in their end outcome. They practice these skills using short burst tasks to gain confidence with their writing development.
• The teachers use drama and spoken language to improve oracy skills.
• Practising these skills consistently and building on prior knowledge;
• Using clear structures to plan pieces of writing;
• Producing extended pieces which clearly demonstrate the application of writing skills studied;
• Consistently sharing, editing and improving work;
• Reflecting on, and re-drafting writing based on formative feedback.

Children in the Early Years are stimulated to mark-make in a variety of creative contexts. They apply age- appropriate key skills (e.g. finger spacing, phonic knowledge). In KS1 we continue to use quality books to stimulate high quality, well-modelled writing. Children learn to proof-read and edit their work. This then continues into KS2.

We teach children cursive writing (starting with leads in and out in Y2) to encourage fluency of script. Writing has a high profile across the school. We give rewards each term to Writing Champions. Throughout KS1 and 2, we develop extended, purposeful writing. We encourage creativity alongside teaching skills with rigour.