Here at Central, carefully chosen texts are placed at the heart of our English Learning Journey and we use these texts as vehicles to steer reading into writing. The exploration of writing for a range of purposes and genres in an integral part of each journey. The exposure to quality models and examples of writing allows children to identify the features and the writing styles that they will need to include in their own writing. As a school, we place a high emphasis on the purpose and audience of the children’s writing. A key part of our journey is the children learning new skills and having the opportunity to explore in these skills in various ways. Therefore, the teaching of the SPaG skills are interwoven into the learning journey so children are developing these skills in context creating a more meaningful learning experience. We recognise the role vocabulary plays in developing good writers and because of this key, ambitious vocabulary is taught throughout each learning journey. In order to create reflective writers, we incorporate editing and redrafting sessions into a learning journey so children can evaluate their work. This then leads in to the outcome of the learning journey. At the end of each learning journey, our ‘Polished Pieces’ are a way of our children showcasing all of their hard work

 

SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) skills

We place a high importance on the children learning skills in a meaningful context. Therefore, this is at the heart of our writing learning journey. The teaching of SPaG skills when writing are interwoven into the learning journey so children are developing these skills in context creating a more meaningful learning experience. We carefully match the SPaG skills taught to the purpose and genre of the writing, making the writing experience as real and meaningful for the children. Throughout the journey, the children are provided opportunities to apply these skills.

 

We understand that spelling is a complex skill and an important part of the writing process. The teaching of spelling is linked into English lessons and across the curriculum. This is in addition to the discrete teaching of spelling.

 

Handwriting/Motor skills

Alongside developing the contents of the children’s writing we support children’s written presentation. The children will develop skills including the shape, size and orientation of letters before moving onto using the approach strokes to help join their letters together. These skills are taught regularly and the expectations are maintained when writing in any area of the curriculum.

 

Writing Through School

As writing is an integral part of most subjects in the curriculum, we ensure that our children are given plentiful opportunities to communicate their ideas across the curriculum. We offer a range of cross curricular writing opportunities through different subjects. As a school, we aim to enrich our children’s experience of writing by taking part in activities throughout the school year. Some of these are listed below:

 

•  Author visits – We encourage author visits into school to spark imagination and creativity in children. These offer our children exciting opportunities to meet the people behind the words and illustrations of a book. We have also linked up to authors using social medial to enhance the teaching of texts in class or linked to our concept curriculum.

• Creative writing competitions – We take part in our academy trust writing creative writing competitions where children complete a piece of writing based on a theme.

• The Engineer projects – Each groups of children at Central take part in the Engineers project. This is a perfect example of how we integrate writing across the curriculum and for a real life purpose. The project involves children having to write a supporting letter of explanation about their product design.