Writing
Every child in Wood Farm is a writer. Children learn to write confidently and clearly for many different audiences and purposes. Across the curriculum their written communication skills express their knowledge, thoughts and opinions.
Writing is at the heart of our curriculum and children read and write every day - in English lessons and across the curriculum. Children are immersed in language, through oracy and high-quality, engaging texts, giving them the experience, skills and inspiration to write across a range of styles. They learn the process of writing, modelled daily by their teachers, and will talk about the choices writers make, and reflect on their effectiveness. Children are given regular, rapid, specific feedback on what they've done well and how they can improve from their teachers and their peers, as well as developing the confidence to revise and edit their own writing.
What you'll see:
Children exploring the language, structure and style of writing of published authors, reflecting how to use these skills in their own writing
Children planning their writing with peers, talking about the right structure and drawing on high quality texts to make planning decisions.
Children experimenting with language and writing styles and making informed choices.
Explicit teaching and modelling of the technical skills of writing, for example punctuation, grammar and sentence construction.
Children drawing on their knowledge from across the curriculum to inspire their writing.
Children editing and revising their writing to make improvements with their teacher, their peers and independently.
The sharing of children's writing across the school, by children themselves, on display and in class books.
What you'll hear:
Children talking about what they are writing, rehearsing sentences orally and confidently reading it aloud.
Phonics knowledge being used by children spell unfamiliar words.
Children reflecting on and revising their own writing, individually or with peers.
Specific, constructive and rapid feedback being shared by teachers and children.
Teachers follow a clear progression in the teaching of writing. Over a number of weeks, children move through this process, giving them a deep understanding of the purpose, audience and effectiveness of their writing, and giving them the skills they need to improve.
This begins with agreeing a clear purpose and audience for their writing, which will shape all their writing decisions. From this, children are immersed in style of writing they are composing by 'tuning into the text', either through an oral storytelling approach, or exploring high-quality written texts together. Then they plan their writing, selecting content and building a structure for writing, either individually or as a group or class - a process modelled and supported by their teachers. Alongside this, children learn the specific technical skills for their writing: this could be through shared writing together, or the teacher modelling or showing the children this process and talking through their own writing choices as they write.
Children then have a chance to write, sometimes individually, other times in a group, but always with the autonomy to make choices and select language themselves. Once they've written, they are supported to improve their writing both to revise it's content, but also edit for accuracy. Finally, their writing is published! This could be sharing with other children in school, sending their work into the local or wider community or or taking it home to share with families.
Further Information:
Writing Policy
Whole School Writing Overview