Writing

Intent

At Treloweth, we understand how a strong grounding in English will impact the future learning and development of a pupil in all aspects of their life. We want to prepare children with the essential writing skills they will need for later life by providing an enriched and engaging English curriculum, where they write with a clear purpose across all subjects. Books are the catalyst for our curriculum and provide the spark of inspiration for further writing.

“The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.”

Quality texts are vital, and we should use books as a springboard for writing (of all types), not just reading.

We intend:
• To create confident writers who develop stamina for writing throughout school and are able to write at length.
• For all of our children to be independent writers, building on a range of skills as they work through each journey of writing.
• That all of our children are exposed to high quality texts that model excellent writing practises across a broad range of genres.
• For our children to have a secure understanding of the purpose of a text type, the purpose and intended impact of writing skills/tools and the ability to carefully select vocabulary with focus on the desired effect on the readers’ thoughts and feelings so that the impact of their writing is positive.
• Ensure that all pupils know how to plan, practise and evaluate their work as well as carry out an effective edit and improvement process using feedback from the teacher.
• That our children are challenged and encouraged to take risks and view mistakes as a positive part of the learning process.
• To celebrate writing at each stage through the learning process to encourage children to take pride in their work.
• To provide a balanced and broad curriculum, which encompasses writing practice and equips children with the skills and knowledge of writing processes including handwriting, spelling, grammar, widening vocabulary and writing for different styles.
• To be inclusive of all children, including SEND by providing the appropriate scaffolding, support and writing tools those children need in their writing process to experience success.
• That our children have high expectations of themselves where they take pride in all aspects of learning and in everything they produce.

By placing books at the core of our curriculum, we ensure that reading is valued across the school and that curriculum time is devoted toward the acquisition of vocabulary and the teaching of reading related skills. We believe that a context for learning is vital – and our chosen approach ensures that objectives for reading and writing, including those for grammar can have
purpose.

We always aim for our writing opportunities to be meaningful; whether short or long and that the audience is clear. Books offer this opportunity; our final aim would be that children have real reasons to write, whether to explain, persuade, inform or instruct and that where possible, this can be embedded within the text or linked to a curriculum area. Writing in role using a range of genres is key to our approach as is writing a critique of the text and making comparisons – all writing skills that will support children in preparation for their time in secondary school.

Implementation

At Treloweth Primary Academy, we teach English by following the Literary Curriculum (Literacy Tree). The Literary Curriculum from the Literacy Tree is a complete, thematic approach to the teaching of primary English that places children’s literature at its core.

As a whole-school approach, children explore 80 literary texts and experience at least 68 unique significant authors as they move through the school. This is in addition to the wealth of books they will encounter through reading sessions and story time. Texts are always selected for their quality and significance. There is a wide variety including classics, award-winning texts
(Carnegie, Kate Greenaway, Guardian, Newbery and Caldecott) and celebrated and significant authors such as children’s laureates and poet laureates. The range includes novels, novellas, picture books, wordless texts, narrative poems, playscripts and narrative non-fiction.

The Literacy Tree Curriculum approach provides complete coverage of all National Curriculum expectations for writing composition, reading comprehension, grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. All plans include engaging starting points to generate interest, engage and activate inference. These link to the books’ themes and employ elements of dramatic
conventions, which are maintained and addressed across the sequence. Plans include explicit grammar objectives so that the grammar skills for writing are seen in context and can be applied within writing. These are taught ‘discretely’ yet creatively, and still embedded firmly within the context of the book. In addition, planning integrates spelling investigations and activities, so that patterns and rules are explored, discovered and then used purposefully within writing. Built into the plans are a variety of shorter and longer writing opportunities that are purposeful and pertinent to particular points of text. Children are encouraged to write in role, with bias and for a distinct audience, rather than writing in one fixed genre for the whole planning sequence. Collectively the sequences help children build a literary repertoire; develop a knowledge of significant authors and prepares them for the subject content of critical reading at Key stage 3.

At our school, the Literacy Tree texts are mapped out across each year to ensure progression and National Curriculum coverage across all year groups.

Children will experience aspects of the National Curriculum on multiple occasions and will write for a range of audiences and purposes, embedding knowledge and skills by over-learning.

At a glance

• National curriculum guiding principles form the basis of planning
• Literacy Tree is our chosen scheme to support the delivery of teaching from EYFS to Year 6
• Writing is mapped across year groups in small sequential steps and end points identified (to know, do and experience) key skills and knowledge is revisited multiple times
• Treloweth ½ term Progression Documents plot Literacy Tree themes and books
• Each year group has short regular writing outcomes which lead to a larger piece of writing at the end of a unit
• Daily lessons activate prior knowledge, introduces, uses and applies specific vocabulary, learning is demonstrated through speaking, listening and writing
• Examples of work can be found on class website pages newsletters and display
• KS2 use Alan Peat ‘sentence types’ to further develop sentence structure and grammatical awareness
• Links to other subjects include: geography, science, history, RE