Writing – The Crane Park Way

Writing is the process of using symbols, letters of the alphabet, punctuation and spaces, to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form. Children gain an understanding of how language works through developing their speaking and listening skills and through reading a wide variety of genres. By looking at language patterns, structures, origins and developing a strong grasp of spelling, grammar and punctuation children move from mark making into writing for a purpose. Children use their knowledge, skills and understanding to write for a variety of purposes, across a range of different contexts and across the curriculum. The many skills involved, enable children to express themselves creatively and imaginatively, as they become enthusiastic writers of stories, poetry and drama as well as non-fiction writing and media texts.

Aspire: At Crane Park we want to our children to develop a love for language and literature and possess the knowledge, skills and confidence to use written communication to express themselves effectively and achieve their goals.

Believe: Writing, like reading, is imperative for many activities in daily life and this highlights the need for learners to become flexible, fluent, and confident writers. We want to ensure that our children gain language proficiency of increasing levels of complexity and sophistication, so that they may become confident communicators who are able to competently engage with literature and participate as active citizens.

Achieve: We want all children to leave our school writing independently, as the ability to communicate creatively with accuracy, expression and imagination will vastly improve their future life chances.

Writing Skills that we develop at Crane Park include:

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Spelling: The writer records ideas fluently, spelling quickly and accurately by applying knowledge of the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words.

Handwriting: The writer correctly holds a pencil / pen and letters are formed correctly and consistently in terms of direction and starting and finishing points. The writer understands which letters belong to which handwriting ‘families’ (i.e. letters that are formed in similar ways). As the writer’s confidence increases, so too does legibility.

Composition:

Planning: The writer is clear about the purpose for writing and is aware of their audience. They have identified the language and structural features of the genre and make organisational and vocabulary choices, based on that knowledge.

Drafting: This is the preliminary stage of written work in which the writer begins to develop a more cohesive approach. A first draft is produced, using ideas from the planning process and is a ‘work in progress’ that the writer will adapt based on editing and evaluation.

Editing: The writer proof reads their work and makes changes to ensure accuracy and improved impact upon the reader.

Evaluation: Children think about the whole piece of text and form opinions about whether the purpose has been met and then, provide feedback to others.

In order for this to happen, our school employs a number of strategies which include:

• use of the RWInc scheme to develop phonic acquisition and improve spelling

• handwriting practice to develop fluency and legibility

• a text led curriculum, exposing children to high quality texts which enable them to identify the language and structural features of different genres.

• Talk for writing activities, enabling children to explore and experiment with their ideas orally, before writing.

• Specific teaching of vocabulary and language structures that will be needed for the writing.

• Teacher modelled writing, providing children with a scaffold upon which to base their own writing

• Explicit grammar teaching, equipping the children with an arsenal of punctuation and literary techniques to express their ideas with particular effect on the reader.

• Opportunities to read and appraise the writing of their peers from which, they can adopt and adapt ideas for their own use.

• Support in evaluating the impact of their own writing to develop editing skills.

Writing is also a critical exercise that deepens thinking and understanding, enabling our pupils to apply their learning from across the curriculum to a variety of contexts. By developing our pupil’s written communication skills, we are also enabling them to better access the broader curriculum and prepare them for their next steps in education, training and eventually employment. Our values and British values are embedded through our English curriculum to build capacity to support them at Crane Park and beyond.