WRITING
Good literacy skills provide us with the building blocks not just for academic success, but for fulfilling careers and rewarding lives (EEF, 2017).
Writing is a complex yet essential life skill, involving many factors. Northam Schools' Federation believes that providing children with the skills of composition, handwriting, spelling and grammatical understanding will empower them to construct and convey meaning using written words.
Writing Intent
Children are active participants in the writing process. They enjoy exploring text types and adapt their skill set to meet the needs of different genres. Children enjoy the social element of storytelling and are curious about author’s writing processes. Children take risks in their writing by independently exploring their own writing style. Children’s enthusiasm for writing helps them to become successful, life-long learners of writing.
Using a variety of exciting, writing stimuli, teachers ensure the writing process provides:
Varied experience
Awe and wonder
Aspiration and ambition
Diversity and understanding
Planning:
Before we begin to plan, teachers note the 'writerly knowledge' needed for a successful writing outcome, beginning always by identifying the intended effect of the model text before investigating in some detail the elements of grammar, vocabulary and text structure that help to create this.
Familiarity with the full potential of a text means we can better focus on elements that will have the biggest impact on our children's learning.
Choosing a core text:
Each teaching sequence is based around a core text. There are a great many wonderful texts out there to share with children. However, as a Federation we have carefully select ones we base our teaching sequences on to ensure they offer all of the following:
something worth discussing;
rich language to explore;
structures (text and grammatical) that can be replicated to inspire pupils' original compositions;
challenge;
exposure to a range of genres, plots, settings and storylines across their school life;
cultural capital.
The learning process:
The writing sequence follows a three part structure: Learning about the text (imitate), Practising writing (innovate) and Independent writing (invent).
