At Scarcroft, we know that engaging children with writing will ensure that they become confident and coherent communicators, both in spoken and written language. Therefore, we teach a sequenced and progressive curriculum which builds on the skills of transcription and composition, [with the intent of] producing fluent writers who can communicate effectively for any purpose.
TRANSCRIPTION
Spelling
In EYFS and KS1, we use our Synthetic Phonics Programme (Little Wandle: Letters & Sounds Revised) to teach the phoneme / grapheme correspondences that form the foundations of good spelling.
At Key Stage 2, spelling is based on Jane Considine’s The Spelling Book. In addition to this, we support our children with SEN relating to spelling through use of the Nessy online programme which children access in class as well as through a weekly intervention session.
Handwriting
We use the scheme ‘Letter Join’ to teach handwriting throughout the school. From Nursery to Year 2, ‘Letter Join’ is followed within weekly sessions. In Years 3 to 6 teachers adapt the scheme to meet the needs of their class.
Children initially learn print letter formations before moving onto pre-cursive and then cursive as they move through school.
COMPOSITION
In EYFS, Development Matters is used alongside Little Wandle to support the teaching of writing. As is recommended in these documents, dictated sentences with known sounds and letter formations are the main focus of text generation work. However, continuous provision provides further opportunities for independent writing practice.
From Y1, Scarcroft’s ‘The Writing Pathway’ forms the backbone of our writing. This is a set of non-negotiable activities (exploration of genre, linked EGPS tasks, modelled planning and writing, independent planning and writing), which occur in a cycle over a maximum of 3 weeks. Our expert writing teachers use this Pathway to produce a minimum of four pieces of independent writing per term which can then be combined with other cross-curricular pieces to form judgements of the pupils as writers.
Genres are chosen to provide a balance of writing opportunities. This means an accurate picture of each child as a writer can be made at the end of each term. The stimulus for writing varies as we know that children need to be motivated in order to write well and not all children / year groups are motivated by the same things. More often than not, the stimulus is taken from the class book or current topics as our expert writing teachers know that these are most likely to engage the majority of children. Current national and local events are also used where staff know that these will be engaging especially in Y5 and Y6.
Time is given to drafting, revising and editing through both the modelled writing and independent writing stages of the Pathway using Tickled Pink (pink highlighter to show elements that met the success criteria) and Growing Green (green highlighter – teacher – and green pen – pupil – to uplevel work).
ASSESSMENT
From Y1 onwards, after each piece of Independent work has been completed, staff use their year group’s writing checklists to assess how well each child has progressed in this piece. Class weaknesses are identified and then additional work can be built into the next unit of work to address gaps. Children working below their year group work through criteria at their level accessing the Pre-key Stage Standards where necessary.
