WRITING

INTENT

At the Berkeley Academy, we STRIVE to do our best and believe the teaching of writing is of paramount importance within a broad and balanced curriculum. We strive to:

• Ensure pupils leave as confident, capable and independent writers, who understand the purpose and importance of writing but also enjoy the writing process.
• Create confident writers who develop stamina for writing and are able to write at length
• Support all of our children in becoming independent writers, building on a range of skills as they work through each journey of writing
• Expose all pupils to high quality texts that model excellent writing practises across a broad range of genres
• Ensure that children have a secure understanding of the purpose of a text type, the purpose and intended impact of writing skills/tools and the ability to carefully select vocabulary with focus on the desired effect on the readers’ thoughts and feelings so that the impact of their writing is positive
• Ensure that all pupils know how to plan, practise, evaluate their work as well as carry out an effective edit and improvement process using feedback from the teacher
• Celebrate writing at each stage through the learning process to encourage children to take pride in their work
• Provide a balanced and broad curriculum, which encompasses writing practice and equips children with the skills and knowledge of writing processes including handwriting, spelling, grammar, widening vocabulary and writing for different styles
• Ensure that we are inclusive of all children, including SEND by providing the appropriate scaffolding, support and writing tools those children need in their writing process to experience success
• Encourage our pupils to have high expectations of themselves where they take pride in all aspects of learning and in everything they produce

IMPLEMENTATION

In order to help us to develop confident, enthusiastic writers who can express themselves in a variety of different styles and across a variety of contexts, our teaching of writing is often cross curricular and linked to our year group themes. This provides our children with regular opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences.

In writing lessons, we develop the ‘Read to Write’ units to support teacher planning. This empowers our teachers to provide high-quality teaching of writing through children’s high-quality literature. The units of work focus on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities. Teaching blocks focus on fiction, non-fiction or poetry, in line with the 2014 National Curriculum and comprehension, grammar and writing are embedded in lessons.

Writing is taught daily, and children are given regular opportunities to write to build up stamina, skills, confidence, and enjoyment. Teachers explicitly model the writing process at all stages. This is done on flipchart paper and displayed around the classroom on “washing lines” or on working walls. The children can then use these to support them in their writing, thereby encouraging an increased independence as they move through KS1. This includes the thought processes of the teacher, modelled explicitly through verbalising each step. Throughout the school, we teach the strategy of “think it, say it, write it, check it” to support children to talk through their ideas before writing them down.

In summary, at The Berkeley Academy we: 

• Teach Writing on a daily basis across the school using the Read to Write planning progression
• Tailor our planning to the needs of our class  
• Use high quality literature to lead our teaching of writing 
• Use Assessment for Learning and encourage our children to be active in reviewing the successes in their work and identifying areas for improvement 
• Celebrate children’s writing throughout the school community

Assessment

Assessment is an integral and continuous part of the teaching and learning process at The Berkeley Academy. Teachers integrate the use of formative assessment strategies such as: effective questioning, the use of learning ladders, effective feedback and response in their teaching and marking and observing children participating in activities. Each half term, teachers assess the children’s writing using independently written pieces. To ensure quality assurance, there is termly moderation across the Chancery Trust schools.

IMPACT

Children leave The Berkeley Academy as confident writers, who have the key skills and knowledge necessary for the next stage of their learning. Writing at The Berkeley:

• Equips children for life
• Creates lasting memories and brings the whole school community together
• Supports the well-being of our children, by providing relaxing opportunities to write for pleasure
• Enables access to a broad and balanced curriculum
• Enables our children to achieve above national expectations