English
Writing
At Tattenhall Primary School, we believe that all pupils should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We believe that all good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. We strive for our pupils to use their writing and reading skills across the whole curriculum and to internalise key vocabulary from subjects such as geography, history and science.
To enable our pupils to become succesful writers we follow the 'Pathways to Write' programme and use high quality, engaging texts to inspire our writing. Pathways to Write follows a Mastery-Learning model. Key skills are taught and repeated; there are multiple opportunities throughout each unit to use and apply the skills until they can be mastered fully. Within each sequence, there are many opportunities for incidental short- burst writing with an extended written outcome built up to by the end of each unit.
Planning follows the sequence below:
• Session 1: Gateway
Gateway keys are the skills that should have been previously taught
This is an opportunity to hook the pupils into the context of learning and to assess previously taught mastery skills. A short writing task is set at the end of this session to assess the application of Gateway skills. Where pupils are struggling to apply and to use Gateways keys, these should be built into the planning of the unit to ensure more personalised learning.
• Sessions 2-11: Pathway
Mastery keys are the main skills that will be focused on throughout the unit.
In this section, the Mastery skills are introduced with many opportunities along the way to practise and apply these skills in different writing tasks. The tasks use genres that the pupils will be most familiar with such as character or setting descriptions, dialogue, diary entries, instructions, poetry and sentence work, providing a range of on-going evidence for writing assessment. During this part of the writing unit, there is a clear focus on vocabulary developement and expanding the pupil's vocabulary choices. Pathways to Write aims to develop word depth with children by developing a planned approach to explaining words and meaningful, repeated exposure to them.
• Sessions 12-15: Writeway
This final section of the sequence comprises of 4 sessions. It begins with sectioning and sequencing texts using a model. Within the Writeaway, pupils are encouraged to plan, write, check, edit, re-draft and publish as required; with the focus on using and applying the mastery skills they have been taught.
Within each year group, a range of genre are covered to ensure the breadth required by the National Curriculum is achieved. These are non-fiction, fiction and poetry. There is a clear build up of skills throughout each year group and progression across the whole school.
At different times during the school year, we may have whole school writing themes or use the same text across the school to inspire our writing.
Spelling
Pupils in EYFS and KS1 have daily Read Write Inc phonics lessons. Within these lessons they learn how to use sounds to read and to spell. To find out more about these lessons go to our 'Reading and Phonics Scheme' page Phonics Page.
Once the pupils have completed the Read Write Inc programme, we follow Spelling Shed's teaching sequence. Spelling lessons focus on a spelling rule each week and the pupils practise the rules through fun, engaging activities. We will make purposeful links with our English writing units and other areas of the curriculum where applicable.
Each class has spellings set each week through the Spelling Shed online platform. This enables pupils to practise their spellings in an exciting way and teacher's gain valuable feedback on their progress at home too. Spelling Shed
