Writing
Intent
At Co-op Academy Grove, we strive to help our children write with confidence and accuracy for a variety of purposes and audiences whilst developing their own individual flair, regardless of background, ability or gender. We want our children to be able to write with grammatical accuracy and be able to apply spelling patterns correctly using a neat handwriting style. We aim for our children to apply all of these English skills to all areas of the curriculum. We aim to teach ambitious vocabulary that can be applied in their learning. We strongly believe that a quality piece of writing can only be developed by providing children with a rich curriculum and wider opportunities which will ignite their interest and give them a context and purpose to write for.
Implementation
Three to four quality fiction texts are used for each year group to inspire them to write effectively. A range of genres (fiction and non-fiction) are expected to be covered across the year. To ensure that all children are ready to write for different purposes, they are taught, ‘The Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar’ unit from Grammarsaurus. This is a four week unit that focuses on the basics to secure sentence structure.
Guided reading is taught alongside writing, using the text as inspiration. Lessons are carefully planned to ensure reading lessons teach reading skills and writing lessons teach writing skills and these lessons intertwine with each other. This enables the children to become fully immersed in a text.
We use excellent examples of writing. From these we teach the pupils grammatical skills they will need to write in a similar style. The children imitate and innovate writing before becoming independent writers with their own writing style. It is an expectation that a minimum of three final writes are completed each half term, which are published to a high standard. These are assessed using our writing grids, linked to the National Curriculum, on ‘Educater’.
Writing for parents