WRITING
Writing Overview
Our curriculum is designed so that children will become imaginative, creative and articulate communicators who are well equipped with the written and verbal skills they need to become life-long learners.
Writing is taught through Talk 4 Writing (T4W), an approach that enables children to write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. Children will internalise the language structures needed to write through oral rehearsal of a known text as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using modelling and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully. Spelling, handwriting and grammar are taught both as explicitly as stand-alone lessons and implicitly as part of teacher modelling.
The curriculum is purposefully structured and designed to build on previous learning with a focus on genre and purpose for writing. Each unit is carefully planned to follow the three stages of the T4W approach.
Stage 1 Imitation - children learn to recall a text by heart with expression and actions using a text map to support; children focus on interpreting unfamiliar language and the overall structure of a text. This embeds high-quality linguistic patters and provides children with a structure that can be manipulated when writing independently
Stage 2 Innovation – children take ownership of the text, for example through manipulation of the characters and setting; children apply a variety of writing tools that have been extracted from the text, previous work and other examples of the genre they have looked at.
Stage 3 Invention - children write independently, drawing on the rich vocabulary they have gathered from their reading, manipulating the memorized text and working co-operatively with their learning partners. The skills required to achieve this are taught through a series of strategies including modelling and guided writing in the innovation phase. Careful links are made across the curriculum to ensure that the children’s learning is relevant and meaningful.
Oracy is a key aspect of classroom practice which provides pupils with opportunities to deepen their vocabulary, understanding and verbalise their writing.
