Castleview
'There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story.
You never quite know where they'll take you.'
Beatrix Potter
National Curriculum Programmes of Study
At Castleview school, we are aware that our children live in a digital society and have fewer language models to support them. Effective oracy impacts spelling, grammar and cohesion. With this in mind, our teachers plan and deliver high quality English lessons where modelling of oracy, spoken language, vocabulary and written language is of a high quality and tailored to the needs of the children. In turn, we aim to have all pupils ending their primary education being able to read, write and speak with clarity, confidence and credibility so that the children are equipped with the skills they need to increase their self-esteem and succeed in the rest of their education and in the rest of their lives.
At Castleview we follow a cross curricular approach to Writing. Our Writing curriculum is rooted in reading, with all writing opportunities linked to a high-quality class text which the children study in their reading lessons. Our writing lessons ensure that our children have exposure to a wide range of genres and learn to write for different audiences and purposes. In order to make secure links between writing and reading, pupils are made aware that they should ‘read as a writer’ and ‘write as a reader’.
In discrete grammar lessons, the children are taught the knowledge of grammatical features they will need to apply to their writing that week. This ensures that they make purposeful links and build on the skills they have learnt in order to progress.
Progression in Grammar
The Writing Process
As a school, we draw on 'Talk for Writing' so that the children can rehearse and learn exemplary models of writing at the beginning of a unit. They will dissect and evaluate these models, analysing the grammatical rules and tools that make the piece of writing a success.
The next step in the writing process is the planning stage, where the children formulate their ideas, vocabulary and secure their understanding of the grammatical concepts they will need to use.
As the writing process continues, the teacher models writing and the children take part in shared writing opportunities with their peers, as well as guided writing opportunities with their teachers, to develop their knowledge and skills in readiness for their independent writing.
When the children write independently, they may be expected to use strategies of imitation, where they change some elements of an original piece, or innovation, where they are expected to have planned a new piece of writing from scratch based on the model genre. By the end of KS2, we expect that the children will be confident in selecting their own writing genres to present their work based on a given stimulus, whilst keeping their audience in mind.
Editing within writing is a key skill taught to all pupils and the children. They are encouraged to explain why they have edited particular parts of their work.
Classrooms are inviting, vocabulary rich environments, where pupils feel comfortable to ask questions and share ideas; they are places where great examples of writing are celebrated.
Spelling
In EYFS and KS1, the children learn to spell as part of their daily phonics lessons where they learn to apply the sounds taught. In all other areas of the curriculum, the children are encouraged to apply their phonic knowledge when writing independently. For Year 1-6, we follow a clear progression of spelling expectations in line with the National Curriculum.
Word lists and visual prompts are used in classrooms to assist children with their spelling. In all work, spelling is given a high priority. Children are encouraged to use different strategies to help them spell correctly including phonics, use of word lists or mats and dictionaries. When marking work teachers pick out spellings for children to correct.
Handwriting at Castleview
Click here for everything you need to know about how we teach handwriting at Castleview
