Writing is taught in various ways throughout each unit of English work. Writing opportunities are linked closely to a high-quality text which children will study in depth, and these have been mapped out across each term and each year in our progression documents. Children are taught key knowledge in the three strands of writing (transcription; composition; vocabulary, punctuation and grammar) as part of their English lessons, with these linked closely to the text types they are studying.
Written outcomes for each unit are mapped into our progression document and identified on short-term planning by class teachers. Within each English unit, children will write a mixture of short-burst and extended pieces. Throughout the year, children will be given opportunities to develop their writing of different text types for different purposes:
Prior to writing, children are given the opportunity to generate ideas through different strategies, including talk for writing, drama and role-play, oral rehearsal, story mapping, note-taking, and research. Children are then guided through the planning process and taught how to plan their writing linked to the purpose, audience, text type and genre. During the writing lessons that follow, there will be a mixture of modelled writing, shared writing, guided writing and independent writing, dependent upon children’s needs. Time for editing and redrafting, and the teaching of this, is planned into each unit of work.
There are plenty of opportunities for ‘real world’ writing which enable children to practise their writing skills outside of school – cards, lists, letters to friends and family, diaries and short stories are just a few examples. Oxford Owl have further tips for supporting writing at home: home.oxfordowl.co.uk/english/primary-writing.
Spelling:
In Reception and Year 1, children are taught to spell as part of their daily phonics lessons. They are taught how to stretch and segment words to identify the phonemes within, and use the GPCs they know in order to represent the sounds they hear. Children are taught how to use ‘best guess’ in order to choose the most likely graphemes to represent the sounds in words.
The discrete teaching of spelling begins in Year 2. Children are taught further phoneme-grapheme correspondences, as well as spelling patterns and rules such as how to add prefixes and suffixes to words. We use Essential Letters and Sounds: Essential Spelling as our spelling programme for Year 2. Discrete teaching of spelling continues into Key Stage 2; we use the Essential Spelling and Word Knowledge programme to teach children about etymology, morphology and phonological spelling rules which can be applied across the curriculum.
Handwriting:
In Reception and Year 1, children are taught how to form letters correctly, using the ELS mnemonics and rhymes to support with this. We aim teach children how to join letters in Year 2, once children are secure with the correct formation of individual letters. Joined handwriting is modelled by all staff, and handwriting joins are taught and practised discretely in Year 2. In KS2, an emphasis is placed on increasing the legibility, consistency and quality of their joined, cursive handwriting so that they are able to maintain legibility in joined writing when writing at speed by the end of Year 6. Handwriting continues to be taught discretely throughout KS2, following the school’s handwriting progression.
Children are expected to use fluent, joined handwriting across all subject areas, and should take pride in their written presentation.