Writing

We want to develop children into writers who care: who care about what they’re writing and have the confidence and ability to convey their message accurately and purposefully. We encourage children to develop their own writing ‘voice’ and to experiment- to understand that writing is not just about blurting words down onto a page but that it can be crafted for effect by making effective choices pertaining to language, grammar and punctuation. We inspire our children to take pride in their work and learn the importance of fixing mistakes. We expect children to use punctuation accurately and to learn and know key spellings, but also to understand that using a tool to check a spelling is an equally important life skill. We aspire to develop writers that read back their writing to experience it as a reader, to share their writing to experience an audience, and to enjoy writing as a primary form of expression and communication.

Reading writing: children rarely become good writers unless they read well. Writing lessons must include daily opportunities to read aloud independently and shared - developing expression, intonation and awareness of punctuation is crucial to children being able to write fluently. Children must regularly see and read good examples of writing.

Modelling writing: it is crucial that children regularly see writing modelled as an integral part of writing lessons. Children need to see the though process involved with writing: the careful construction of sentences, the craft of writing, the reading back of writing, the reviewing of writing.

Talking  writing: Children should be encouraged to orally rehearse sentences, draft and redraft at sentence level to develop quality of sentences and also create coherence within a piece of writing. Talking can also help children focus on grammar skills with dialogue around what type of sentences they have written, what they could try next.

Practising writing: This should happen, if not, daily, close to. They not only need to learn and practise skills in discrete activities but have regular opportunities to compose paragraphs of writing around a theme to practise the use of these skills. Practising writing can be shared, paired, scaffolded, supported and independent.

Editing writing: Children need to learn the important process of proofreading their work. Editing – called polishing – should be completed in purple pen. Children need to learn to identify errors and make corrections, as well as consider ways to improve their content.