Whitley Park Writing Intent and Purpose

Written work is an important way for children to communicate their ideas and understanding and most importantly to develop, support and elevate their thinking. At Whitley Park, we aim to provide a writing curriculum that is underpinned by speaking, listening and reading, which are the building blocks from which high-quality writing emerges.

We intend to provide pupils with the skills needed to allow them to write and share their ideas, experiences and emotions effectively. Pupils will leave our school with the skills that enable them to write for a range of audiences, purposes, and formalities.

Shared and modelled writing is a key pedagogical approach to teaching which is used in English and some cross-curricular writing lessons. This allows the teacher to demonstrate and explicitly model the thought processes and transcriptional skills of a writer. Underpinned by the National Curriculum, our writing aims involve forming, articulating and communicating ideas, and then organising them coherently for a reader; the children understand this as the ‘end point’ of a piece of writing. This requires clear clarity, awareness of the audience and purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Helping children to develop as writers involves teaching them to enhance the effectiveness of what they write as well as increasing their competence and sustained, independent writing skills.

For our children to be successful in writing, they need to have participated in many conversations and listened to a variety of stories and high-quality texts. Therefore, our teaching is always supported by ambitious text choices, placing great literature at the heart; hinging on subtle and sensitive modelling, placing a great value on words and giving children lots of writing practice.

Using our Writing / Reading Spine, which has been generated alongside current pedagogy and recommended reading, we ensure that children are exposed to a variety of text types (see Reading / Writing document for more information) that are used for their writing stimulus. These age appropriate and stimulating texts are then applied to each purpose of writing (to entertain, inform, persuade and discuss) through tasks that aim to build independent writing.

Writing Implementation

                

How writing is taught at Whitley Park

Writing at Whitley Park is taught around a stimulating book, where children proudly create a piece of work, sometimes published, for a purpose and chosen audience. Each book is carefully selected to stimulate and engage the children. By the end of each year, children will have been exposed to a variety of text types (please see Whitley Park School Writing and Reading Spine for more detailed information) so that by the time they reach year 6 and beyond, they have a good understanding of them and are able to access more complex books expected of them during their secondary education.

Each half-term, children will have the opportunity to produce one fiction and non-fiction piece of writing around their chosen text; for each piece of writing, children will understand the ‘end point,’ and purpose for writing, in context with their book choice.

Typically, children will begin to use different grammatical features that could be applied to their final written piece. Each piece of writing a child does, supports their understanding of language, vocabulary, grammar work is carefully scaffolded, in line with the needs of their learning and gaps in attainment, to develop confidence, knowledge and independence.

This careful scaffolding supports children in developing the skills needed to be thoughtful readers and creative writers for a range of purposes (to entertain, inform, persuade and discuss) and carefully builds on the skills progression and sequencing of our whole school long-term planning.

Children learn to write for a range of story/ text types using a range of methods including: listening to and learning texts and stories; drawing and story mapping; collecting words and language strategies to develop vocabulary; building their working knowledge of grammar, in context with their chosen text.

Following the steps of a real author, after their first draft, children are given the opportunity to share, reflect, edit and up-level their purposeful final pieces for their intended audience. Sometimes we use current events, short films and poetry to inspire writing and children learn to write different text forms.

 

To ensure every child is exposed to good quality literature, we have developed our own writing and reading spine.  See below for your child's year group.