INTENT

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Raising Aspiration, Realising Ambition, Stimulating Curiosity.

At Priestley Primary School, we recognise that writing is integral to all aspects of life and we mindfully endeavour to ensure that children develop a lifelong, healthy and enthusiastic attitude towards writing. The skill of writing enables pupils to communicate with themselves and others while documenting and conveying their knowledge and ideas. Building on experiences, it encourages expression and higher order thinking skills to develop. Thus, creating a culture of writing in our school ensures our children are given the best opportunities to build their capacity and confidence in a range of writing style.
By creating a stimulating environment and employing appropriate resources, we are determined to provide all pupils with a supportive writing curriculum which will allow learners to recognise their full potential and develop their:
• Literacy
• Creativity
• Independence
• Inquisitiveness
• Inquiry skills
• Confidence

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IMPLEMENTATION

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Placing learning at the heart of everything we do.

In Early Years, a variety of materials are available to develop fine motor skills essential for pencil control and the formation of writing. These include play dough, cutting, threading and using a range of tools. The children are encouraged to mark make as they access a range of materials independently which are carefully planned to promote the development of writing skills. A wide variety of opportunities are provided for children to engage in writing activities such as: shared writing, role play (e.g. restaurant), labels, recipes, lists and menus. Their efforts at this emergent writing stage are valued and praised and as their phonic knowledge and handwriting skills increase, this will be reflected in their writing.
Through the writing journey teachers constantly talk through the thought process of a writer as they model writing skills such as rehearsal, proof reading, editing, word selection, sentence construction, paragraphing as well as specific grammar and punctuation relevant to that particular age group.

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IMPACT

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Priestley and Proud

As a result of our writing curriculum, our children are able to write with confidence, fluency and understanding. They will have experienced writing a range of genres and developed an understanding of writing for a purpose and a particular audience. Their vocabulary will have been enhanced and they will have a thorough understanding of grammar, punctuation and spelling which will lay the foundation for their writing journey.
We use a variety of strategies to evaluate the knowledge and skills of writing:
• CPD to ensure that teacher pedagogy and assessment is secure.
• Regular feedback, marking and pupil voice.
• Subject monitoring including lesson observations.
• Formal assessment to track progress and identify gaps.
• School and Cluster moderation ensuring secure teacher judgements.
• Cross-curricular opportunities to apply writing skills.