Writing
Our Writing Curriculum
Vision:
At Flanderwell, 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. At Flanderwell, we intend for our children to leave as confident, capable and independent writers. Following the National Curriculum, we teach a progressive curriculum which builds upon previous teaching and ensures children are taught to ‘learn and remember more’.
Intent:
At Flanderwell, our intent is that all children have the correct transcriptional and compositional knnowledge required to make them into successful writers. We have broken down the transcriptional and compositional knowledge for each year group and each term. Please see the progression documents below to see the progression across school:
Whole School Flanderwell Writing Transcription Progression
Whole School Flanderwell Writing Progression Composition and SPaG
Implementation
At Flanderwell, we implement our progression documents by teaching 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. Teachers plan inspiring and vocabulary rich lessons based on recommended, good quality texts. We believe it is essential to broaden children’s vocabulary to ensure they develop into confident and able writers. Teachers deliberately practise spelling, punctuation and grammar intentionally across each year group. They 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 early writers in Foundation and Key Stage One are taught using early writing strategies, such as hold a sentence and dictation. This is to ensure that they have the opportunity to practise transcriptional skills, before they move onto composition. Across school, children practise transcriptional skills (handwriting and spelling) daily.
Example of Pathways texts from each year group
Pathways to Poetry
As part of our writing curriculum, children are taught poetry at the beginning of each half term. The poems link with the themes in the corresponding half term’s Pathways to Write unit. This ensures that key vocabulary can be familiarised prior to using the corresponding Pathways to Write unit. Some of the half term’s poetry units link across EYFS-Y6 to create a whole school theme on e.g., nature, history, diversity.
Planning follows the sequence below:
- Session 1: Gateway
This is an opportunity to hook the pupils into the context of learning. They will be introduced to at least one poem and will have the opportunity to learn all or part of it by heart. - Sessions 2-4: Pathway
The first sessions focus on reading and comparing poetry. Pupils will identify the Poetry keys in poems before beginning to collect language and develop ideas ready for composing their own poems. - Session 5: Writeaway
This is a focus on writing composition. Pupils will investigate a model poem and share with a friend. They will plan and write their own version of a poem. Children still on the phonic programme will compose their poetry verbally and will have poetry dictated.
The Poetry keys
The Poetry keys are ensure progression in poetry devices and language. Each unit has two poetry keys which are developed throughout the unit.
Please see the document below to see the progression of poetry throughout school