Writing

 In EBPS we believe that writing is a key skill for life both inside and out of education and that is why it features across all the subjects taught across our school. Our aim is to provide well- rounded writers with key transferrable skills to build on year on year, that can be used throughout each phase of their education and prepare them for the wider world. We aim to provide the children with varied reasons for writing and believe that this not only produces higher quality writing, but allows our learners to apply their skills to a range of different contexts.

Writing across all subject areas will enable our children to have a more in-depth approach to analysing, planning and innovating their writing.

Oracy is weaved throughout our writing curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum. Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful in their writing. Our aim is for all learners to achieve their full potential in writing and we are committed to providing the scaffolds and challenge needed in order for our children to achieve this.

Writing is timetabled daily and children are exposed to a range of texts and a progression of key skills throughout their time at EBPS. All classes use a Talk4Writing structure to plan and teach writing units which encourage plenty of oracy – this means discussion, questioning, imitating and learning texts along with actions that are rich with key skills. A high standard of joined, handwriting is modelled across school and children are encouraged to imitate this. Handwriting skills are expected to be evidenced throughout all work produced.  

Teachers demonstrate high quality modelling within each Writing unit and encourage children to include key vocabulary, structure their work appropriately and use the grammatical skills and punctuation taught at their year group level.

The use of a model text is used as an example of how to be successful at the start of each unit of work. This provides children with an end goal. Children are encouraged to use this as a structure but also innovate their writing to make it their own. They do this through the use of boxing-up and creating genre specific toolkits. Teachers ensure that the standard of writing in the model text reflects the age-related outcomes for each specific year group. Children are encouraged to deconstruct texts and identify key features for specific genres of writing. Teachers model the practising of these skills and children then apply them to their own writing.

 Our aim is to provide engaging writing hooks that give children an audience and purpose for writing. Children are expected to transfer their vocabulary, spelling and grammar and punctuation knowledge into their topic work. EBPS intends to develop writing as a transferrable skill across all subjects taught in the curriculum. We expect the high standards for writing to be evident within the work in all books. 

EBPS ensures that children are aware of their areas for development in writing by setting targets linked to the Cold write. At the end of a unit children produce a Hot Write to demonstrate all of the new learning they have gained. We ensure that scaffolds and challenges are put in place for those children working below or above age-related outcomes.

Children who are identified as not achieving age-related outcomes and/or those on the SEN register may be assessed against the outcomes for the year group below. Interventions/support may be put in place in order to accelerate writing skills. The nature of the intervention will be decided by the teacher and/or the SENDCO. Support in class may include small group work with an adult during lessons to model key skills, scaffolds created by the teacher to assist with completion of work and word banks/sentence openers provided to assist the child when writing

The impact of the learning in Writing is measured through a comprehensive monitoring cycle which includes book looks, learning walks, pupil voice, and curriculum intent reviews. Findings from these monitoring activities are utilised to review and refine the curriculum being offered to the children. Assessment in writing is ongoing as teachers carry out in-depth assessment of children’s writing at the end of each unit and this data is used to inform next steps for writing. Insight is used to analyse gaps in children’s knowledge and gain an overview of specific groups of children across school. Progress across classes and year groups is monitored by the subject leader and senior leadership team. Monitoring may include: regular book looks, lesson drop in’s, pupil voice interviews, looking at data on Insight and subject show cases. The findings of this monitoring will be used to inform next steps for the children and the implementation of writing across the school as a whole.

When children leave EBPS, they should take with them a range of skills that they have learnt, refined and developed across our whole school curriculum. They should have a love of learning and the desire and ability to communicate effectively on a global scale. 

Writing 

Tina Skett 

Talk for Writing is used across the school in every year group. Each year group covers a mixture of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts over a term. Foci are taught through toolkits which are progressive across the school in a two year cycle. 

T4W is taught for an hour for a minimum of 4 sessions a week from Year 1 – 6 

EYFS:  Four T4W carpet sessions a week and one day with an 'adult led' learning task 

Assessment in writing is ongoing as teachers carry out in-depth assessment of children’s writing at the end of each unit (Hot Write) and this data is used to inform next steps for writing. Insight is used to analyse gaps in children’s knowledge and gain an overview of specific groups of children across school.