Writing

Empowering our children to express themselves clearly, creatively and confidently through a love of writing.

Writing - Our Intent

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For every child to be able to write fluently and competently for a range of purposes.

Long Term Planning

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Take a look at the exciting Writing units that the children get to experience. All our Writing units have been carefully considered to link to our curriculum topics and give a balance between fiction and non-fiction.

Our Big Questions (Medium-Term Plan)

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Take a look at the exciting Writing units that the children get to experience. All our Writing units have been carefully considered to link to our curriculum topics and give a balance between fiction and non-fiction.

Implementation

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  • Use of the Talk 4 Writing planning sequence with a strong emphasis on editing and improving.
  • A focus on the development of rich vocabulary.
  • Discrete spelling lessons along with an emphasis on spellings within lessons and marking.
  • High-quality, accessible texts, as a stimulus, for all units of writing.
  • Next-steps marking that will develop children’s knowledge, skills, and understanding.
  • Personalised, inclusive targets that will challenge children.
  • Development of fluent, legible, and eventually speedy handwriting.
  • I Pupils have had the opportunity to visit authors at the local library and work in school with a Storyteller (Clive Pigg)

Opportunities

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  • Opportunities for activities directly linked to speaking and listening are identified in both the medium and short term planning.
  • Speaking and listening opportunities can be focused, as in class or group discussion, drama activities or plenary sessions at the end of a Writing session.

Home Learning

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All Year groups include a Home Learning task linked to Writing on a half termly home learning sheet.

Impact

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In 2023, 79% of Y6 pupils achieved ‘Expected Standard’ for writing and 13% of Y6 pupils achieved Above Expected Standard for Writing (This was validated by a successful external moderation).

At Carbeile, our aim is to develop confident, independent writers.  We teach writing following the ‘Talk 4 Writing’ sequence, which was developed by Pie Corbett.  It is a powerful technique because it is based on the principles of how children learn. It enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally before reading and analysing it and then writing their own version.  Coupled with Alan Peat’s work on sentences, and regularly assessed Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar learning the children at Carbeile are given all the tools they need to write to a very good standard in all genres.

Assessment

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  • Individual pupil progress is monitored during reading skills sessions and termly attainment for Reading, Writing and SPaG is recorded using the online tracker (Insight)
  • Written work is marked using the school marking policy and will be linked to the lesson’s title.
  • Pupils assess their own and others work during the drafting and proof-reading processes, as well as during the plenary. This gives them the opportunity to write a ‘Final Draft’. Children use toolkits to enable them to identify the features.
  • Use of Publishing Books track individual progress in writing throughout the key stage. New pupils are given a Publishing Book when they join Carbeile.
  • Fiction and non-fiction writing is assessed which allows for moderation across classes and within and across year groups.
  • Moderation with other schools is also done on a yearly basis, where possible. The English Subject Leader is a trained Cornwall County Moderator and has been visiting other schools in Cornwall for four years.
  • Termly NFER tests are used to inform assessment in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar.
  • End of key stage assessments take place for Year 6 in May.
“I really like the Invent week when I can create my own stories.” Bella - Year 6
“English is great. When you come up with your own stories, you can take yourself to another world.” Eli - Year 4
“I love Writing because I get to be creative and use my imagination.” Eliza - Year 4