English Writing

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”  (Martin Luther King)

At Our Lady’s, we recognise that competence in writing is vital for the development of children’s communication skills; a crucial ingredient for progress in other subject areas. Being able to write, offers the opportunity to store information, communicate with each other and to reflect and record creative ideas. When a child becomes a skilled writer, they understand the characteristics of writing’s many forms and are able to adapt their writing to suit a wide range of purposes. Writing is incorporated into our curriculum through planned writing based around different text choices. This approach enables our children to present their learning of curriculum knowledge through a variety of writing tasks and genres, while also ensuring they have the opportunity to explore a range of different texts.

To support children’s writing progress, we have a clear, consistent, whole school approach to writing. The sequence of writing activities is designed to spark both enthusiasm and creativity in our children through the use of carefully chose texts. While also ensuring the technical skills to tackle all writing genres are embedded; meeting the expectations of the National Curriculum.

The impact of our writing journey is to ensure children have:

• Enthusiasm for writing throughout school.
• A growing confidence and competence as writers for a variety of purposes.
•  A sense of achievement in writing, regardless of their age or ability
• A growing knowledge and understanding of grammar and different writing genres.
• The opportunity to listen to a range of inspiring author’s work that in turn inspires their own writing.
• An awareness of the importance of writing in everyday life and its range of uses.
• A sense of pride for their own work.

Spelling 

Read Write Inc. Spellingis a spelling programme based on proven strategies of teacher modelling followed by partner work, to embed learning. The programme covers all the National Curriculum word structures and spelling requirements. It is:

• Built around a series of short, progressive activities
• Uses partner work to help children learn effectively and recall what they have learnt

What does it look like?

It is a spelling programme which is run in daily sessions for 15 minutes.

There is a spelling book which has a range of teacher-led activities, paired work and independent activities. 

The book is split into different units that cover a range of spelling rules from The English National Curriculum

How a unit works

• Speed Spell (test)
• Spelling Zone (online introduction of next unit)
• Dots and Dashes (graphemes)
• Rapid Recap
• Word Changers (root words prefix/suffix)
• Words to Log and Learn
• Dictation (practice in context)
• Four-in-a-row (recall)
• Choose the right word (word families)
• Team Teach (review and revise)

How to support at home

• Talk to the children about the spellings they have to learn
• Discuss the strategies they are using to spell their spellings
• Support your child learning their weekly spellings
• Ensure you child logs into Oxford Owl on a regular basis to play the games linked to the spellings of the week

Grammar and Punctuation

Teaching and learning:

At Our Lady's, grammar and punctuation are taught consistently throughout school, either as the main focus of a lesson or subtly incorporated into the writing process. We believe that new grammar and punctuation concepts should be introduced in the context of students' learning, aligned with their current unit of study. For instance, Year 1 children might learn to describe the events of the Great Fire of London, introducing the past tense through the ‘-ed’ suffix, which is essential for their progression. Additionally, weekly discrete SPAG lessons are held at Our Lady's, with the new concepts being integrated into the week's English lessons.

 In cross-curricular work, there is an expectation that grammar and punctuation skills will be demonstrated, and taught concepts applied precisely and accurately. The marking policy will be applied to ensure that correct punctuation and grammar are applied in all writing tasks across all subjects. Speaking and listening activities in all subjects enable pupils to practise correct grammar in the form of recounting stories and information and constructing sentences effectively. This in turn will impact on children’s ability to write using correct punctuation and grammar and is intended to develop the ‘writing voice’ of all children throughout school.

Please see our progression document below for punctuation and grammar. 

Handwriting

At Our Lady's , we use the Letter-join scheme as the basis of our whole school approach to handwriting, progressing from Early Years to Year 6.

When children start learning intial letter sounds through the Read Write Inc phonics scheme, they are taught the formation of letters using the visual cards and rhymes (see below) .  Children are taught to write using printed letters in reception.

In year 2, children begin to learn cursive handwriting and by Year 4, children are expected to have an efficient and legible cursive handwriting style.

We aim for our children to: 

• Understand the importance of neat presentation in order to communicate their ideas clearly.
• Take pride in the presentation of their work and gain a sense of achievement.
• Present work in a neat and orderly fashion appropriate to the task.
• Use the correct letter formation.
• Develop fluency and speed whilst writing, so that they are able to write in a neat cursive style by  the end of KS2. 

In the early stages children are taught:

• How to hold a pen/pencil correctly and form letters and numbers of regular size and shape.
• Write from left to write and top to bottom of a page. 
• Start and finish upper and lower case letters correctly.
• Put regular spaces between letters and words.
• The importance of clear and neat presentation in order to communicate meaning effectively.

In the later stages children are taught to:

• Write legibly in a joined style with increased fluency and speed.
• Use different forms of handwriting for different purposes, e.g. understand that making quick written notes in English or jottings in maths does not require the same level of neatness as other writing or maths work

• Parents and Carers Letterjoin Home Manual.pdf
• Letter-join HomeAccess.pdf