Writing
Writing Lead – Mrs E McClellan
At Rossington St Michael’s, we aim to support children to become confident and inspired writers through a wide range of activities and teaching methods. Writing is a major part of the curriculum and along with reading, listening and talking, makes a significant contribution to the development of children as thinkers and learners. Here at St Michael’s, we are dedicated to promoting creativity through the written word, supported by the structured development of grammar and punctuation.
We use the Pathways to Write scheme across school, from Foundation to Year 6. Pathways to Write is a high-quality programme which supports the development of English across school. Skills and national curriculum objectives are taught progressively across the school year. Cultural capital is about equipping all pupils with an understanding of life and all that it has to offer. Children who are on our Read, Write, Inc Phonics Programme also access the 'Get Writing' elements of the scheme which sits alongside the Pathways to Write lessons and supports their reading and writing as a combined approach.
Throughout the school the children use a variety of texts to gain more knowledge about how to improve their own writing. The close relationship between reading and writing is an important one for us to develop as we feel that it is particularly important for our children to have a clear purpose for their writing and an awareness of the audience for which they are writing. Pupils at St Michael’s are supported by a range of imaginative starting points including books, visits, visual stimulus and events taking place in school or the wider community. Opportunities for high quality writing are also identified and developed across the wider curriculum; integrating writing in a meaningful and engaging way is central to continuing to raise pupil progress in writing and in promoting enthusiastic and independent writers.
In the national curriculum, it states, ‘It is the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.’ Good quality texts are used to inspire pupils and to introduce them to a wide range of curriculum topics. They give pupil opportunities to see the wider world and see themselves. Teachers plan inspiring and vocabulary rich lessons based on good quality texts. We believe it is essential to broaden children’s vocabulary to ensure they develop into confident and able writers. Teachers use a variety of approaches to ensure that all pupils achieve success including modelling and demonstrating, debates inviting for and against arguments, structured writing frames, direct and indirect instruction and collaborative group work.
Our aim is always to develop a purposeful curriculum to meet the needs of the whole school learning community.
Please visit the National Curriculum for Writing at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study
Early Writing
We support our early writers through the use of Read, Write, Inc lessons where the reading and writing sit side by side within a lesson. The Get Writing! Books contain a range of writing activities for each of the Storybooks to make the strong link between reading and writing. Children on the phonics programme are taught in small, homogenous groups (assessed based on reading ability) and the Get Writing approach is used within daily sessions. The Get Writing! Books contain a wide range of writing activities which are closely linked to the Storybooks and Non-fiction books. Children's writing is supported at every step from writing simple sentences to extended texts including invitations, letters, descriptive texts and non-fiction texts. Longer composition activities are based on a new six-step process with lots of oral rehearsal and role play so children are full of ideas before they write. Grammar, spelling and vocabulary activities, which are drawn from the Storybooks texts and matched to the 2014 National Curriculum, are integrated to help children reach the higher standards and there are check boxes throughout the books prompt children to proofread and review their writing helping them to make sustained progress.
Pathways to Write
Pathways to Write is a proven methodology built around units of work which develop vocabulary, reading and writing skills through the mastery approach. The units, for use with pupils from EYFS to Y6, provide clear detailed lesson plans and resources, linked to high-quality texts to ensure engaging and purposeful English lessons. Effective teaching strategies to challenge greater depth writers are included within each unit of work. In total, there are 42 full units of work, six for each year group from EYFS to Year 6.
Further documents within the package to support the effective implementation of Pathways to Write include: an overview of year group skills from EYFS to Y6, a document to guide the progression and tracking of skills, an overview of reading and spoken language and a progressive guide to genres. There are also writing opportunities for the application of grammar and punctuation and a long term curriculum map.
Within each unit, there are age-related skills for children to work on and master through a variety of activities and writing opportunities. By limiting the number of skills the units contain, children can really hone their writing techniques, providing excellent, focused assessment opportunities for teachers.
Unfortunately, due to copyright issues, we are unable to publish materials but please click the link to watch a video giving a flavour of the programme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM_yb4gWu6M
Core Texts
Each class use a different high-quality text within their Writing lessons each half term. Some examples of books that will be studied are as follows:
