English - Writing

Intent

At Hormead, we endeavour to develop a love for English in all of our children. We believe that all children should be able to confidently communicate their ideas and experiences through their writing. We want to develop writers who:
 

• Think about the impact they want their writing to have on the reader and know how they will achieve this;

• Have a sophisticated bank of vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description;

• Can structure and organise their writing to suit the genre they are writing and include a variety of sentence structures;

• Display excellent transcription skills and show resilience to ensure their writing is neat, well presented, as well as being punctuated and spelled correctly.

• Re-reads, edits and improves their writing so every piece of writing they produce is to the best of their ability and to aspire for it to be better than the last.

As well as supporting all of our children in school, we also recognise the importance of parents and carers in developing our pupil’s writing at home. Thus, we want to promote a purposeful home-school partnership, keeping parents up to date with the skills being taught at school and how this can be practiced at home.

Implementation

Our classrooms are equipped with a wide range of resources to support children with their writing such as word banks, modelled examples and appropriate books. As much as possible, our displays, modelling, as well as adult marking, consistently promote our handwriting expectations to promote our high expectations of presentation.

Our English lessons and planning follow a set sequence, guided by the principles of HfL. The children will cover a range of fiction and non-fiction writing genres, taught through the use of rich, stimulating texts. These texts are chosen carefully to act as a suitable stimulus for the intended writing and reading outcomes. Children will read and analyse a text before planning, writing and reviewing their own writing based on the genre being taught.
 

Handwriting is modelled and taught, at an age appropriate level, in all of our classrooms, building on the expectations set by the National Curriculum. For Reception and Year 1, this primarily happens through the teaching of phonics following our Little Wandle Scheme. From Year 2 onwards, children are given dedicated handwriting practice time.

Spelling, grammar and punctuation are skills taught in all of our classrooms, again at an age appropriate level and ensuring we are building on the expectations set by the National Curriculum. For Reception and Year 1, this primarily happens through the teaching of phonics following our Little Wandle Scheme. From Year 2 onwards, children are taught these skills using the Spelling Shed scheme. 
 

We also have a specific focus on the spelling of common exception words and ensuring that all children can spell these with a high degree of accuracy. To motivate and inspire our children, we run a half-termly Spelling Bee challenge. Each half term, children are given a set list of common exception words to practice at school and at home. This is matched to each child individually. Children are encouraged to apply these spellings in their written work, getting a spelling bee stamp from an adult when they do so. At the end of the half term, children are then tested on their spelling bee words and will then receive either a participation, bronze, silver or gold award in our end of term celebration assembly. 
 

All marking and feedback is given in line with our marking and feedback policy. At Hormead, we strongly encourage our children to take ownership of their writing and therefore, self-assessment is a key skill that is developed through KS1 and KS2. We believe that the best feedback is given in the moment, when it can be talked through with a pupil and acted on there and then.
 

Learning is tailored to each individual child, and appropriate support is always put in place to ensure that each child has a 'toolkit' of writing skills so that they can flourish and thrive as a writer. 

Parents and carers are kept well-informed about the English learning taking place at school, key focus texts used, specific year group expectations and how to support at home. We run regular 'Stay and' sessions with different focuses, so that parents can come and join the classroom and see our learning in action!

Impact

• Pupils will enjoy writing across a range of genres and have the knowledge needed to adapt their writing based on context and intended audience.
• Pupils will have a wide bank of vocabulary to use within their writing and the spelling and grammar skills needed to enhance this.
• Pupils of any ability will be able to succeed in their writing and be proud of their writing achievements because work will be appropriately and carefully scaffolded.
• Pupils will be challenged to further improve and develop their writing, always aiming to make it the best it can be.
• Parents and carers will have a good understanding of the English learning taking place at school and feel confident with how they can support at home.

What do our children say about writing at Hormead?

"If you can learn to write, then when you are older and you have your own kids, you can help them with their homework"

"Writing is important because if someone doesn't know something when they are younger, someone can write down what year it has been and tell them little pieces to help them out"

"If you get it wrong, you just need to sound it out and that will help you"

"Writing is important for when you are a grown up. If you keep writing you will get better and better"

"In Year 1, we had to do 1 sentence. Now in Year 2, we do 3 or 4 sentences on our own - if you get stuck you can ask for help"