Writing

Writing Lead - Miss D Henry

From September 2021, the school has followed the Writing for Pleasure (WfP) pedagogical principles of Young and Ferguson. These principles are based on the 14 principles of world-class writing teaching. These include:

• Explicitly teaching the writing processes (how to generate an idea, plan, draft, revise, edit, publish)
• Teachers teach a mini lesson daily and children are invited to apply the principles of this mini lesson to their writing which incorporate aspects of SPaG
• Children are given time to write every day
• Writing projects have a purpose and audience
• Children are given time to read, share, think and talk about writing through engaging with high quality texts and mentor texts
• Children have the opportunity to pursue writing projects at home and other times in the day to publish in our school magazine
• Teachers carry out ‘pupil conferencing’ to support pupils to further develop their writing

More information can be found about the Writing for Pleasure pedagogy here: https://writing4pleasure.com/ 

At Lowerplace Primary School, we have used the Writing for Pleasure principles and have adapted them to structure our writing lessons effectively to support our children. Writing is taught in the following phases throughout the school:

• Genre Phase

Through engagement with high quality texts as well as teacher-written mentor texts, the children decide on the purpose and audience of their writing project as well as determine what product goals need to be achieved to produce an excellent piece of writing. Children learn about relevant grammar and punctuation that they can apply in their writing during this phase as well as generate their own ideas and plan their writing.

• Drafting Phase

Children receive daily mini lessons during this phase to apply to their writing whilst they produce the first full draft of their piece of writing. Teachers provide verbal and written feedback during conferencing to further support children to produce a high-quality first draft.

• Revising Phase

Like with all excellent pieces of writing, revisions to a first draft are required to ensure the goals for that piece of writing are achieved. During this phase, children receive daily mini lessons linked to the revisions they need to make to improve the overall quality of the piece. Children continue to receive feedback to support them during this process.

• Editing Phase

This is the last phase before children publish their writing and is an opportunity to for children to ensure the correct use of capitalisation, make any final changes to their vocabulary, check their punctuation use as well as correct any spelling errors. Teachers provide mini lessons linked to common errors that may not have been addressed at the revising stage.

• Publishing Phase

After all their hard work, the children are finally ready to publish their writing and share their writing with whoever they decided they wanted to receive it. The writing might be published and shared within school, such as with other classes or teachers, but can also be shared with other schools or places in the community. We finish each project with a publishing party where the children can share and celebrate their published work with the rest of the class.

Lowerplace Writing Policy

Writing Progression

The Lowerplace writing curriculum aims to enable children to build their confidence in writing, to the point that they see themselves as writers and enjoy the writing process. The curriculum is designed to build on the solid writing foundations developed in Early Years Foundation Stage throughout their time at the school, ensuring that when children leave for secondary school they are more knowledgeable about what excellent writing includes and are able to produce quality writing independently.

In EYFS, children learn:

• Pupils can hold a pencil correctly.
• Pupils can form recognisable letters and write their own name.
• Pupils use anti-clockwise movements in mark making/writing.
• Pupils write three or more simple statements on a given subject.

In Key Stage 1, children learn:

• Pupils spell all CVC and most common words on the YR/1/2 lists correctly; spelling of unknown words should be phonetically plausible.
• Pupils use basic sentence punctuation correctly, most of time (full stops, capital letters, question marks, exclamation marks, commas for lists).
• Pupils show some variety in the openers that they use, including using some descriptive language or detail.
• Pupils can produce a clear and coherent piece of writing, linked to the task.
• Pupils use some ambitious words for their age.
• Pupils can identify some errors in their writing by proof-reading what they have written.
• Pupils generally produce handwriting that is controlled and mainly regular. There may be some joining.

In Key Stage 2, children learn:

• Pupils write fluently, independently and effortlessly with only occasional errors of punctuation, grammar and spelling.
• Pupils use the full range of sentence punctuation in their work.
• Pupils use precise and carefully chosen vocabulary in their writing, although new subject-specific vocabulary will continue to develop.
• Pupils are able to control the presentation of information through the nuances of language choices, sentence construction and punctuation.
• Pupils independently make appropriate and timely improvements to their work.
• Pupils use figurative language to enhance description.

Lowerplace Writing Progression

Click on the link below to see our whole school writing skills progression:

Writing Skills Progression