Writing

At Topcliffe, we strive to instil a love of writing through a variety of fun and enjoyable activities.

Our ambition for our children is for them to become articulate and effective communicators. Writing is taught using the Literacy Counts Ready Steady Write approach. This is a comprehensive and evidence-based approach which provides opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident and successful writers, with high aspirations. It provides a sequenced, ambitious curriculum, that places quality literature at its core.

We cultivate a love of Writing and communicating through vocabulary rich and high quality literature, using Ready Steady Write by Literacy Counts. By inspiring and developing an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and providing meaningful and exciting provocations to write,  we aim to develop a habit of writing widely and often. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their Writing; can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts.

Our English curriculum is developed around a sequence of high quality age-appropriate texts. We use each book to create opportunities to:

• develop grammar and punctuation knowledge and understanding to use and apply across the wider curriculum, through sentence accuracy sessions;

• explore the Writing structure and features of different genres, identifying the purpose and audience;

• plan and write an initial piece of Writing with a clear context and purpose before evaluating the effectiveness of Writing by editing and redrafting.

Building on this foundation, we teach writing using a range of strategies which include:

• Group Discussion – Children discuss and interrogate new ideas in a small group or whole class setting. They listen to and value each other’s ideas whilst taking on board feedback so as to improve their own explanations.

• Partner Talk – Children work in partners to discuss their ideas. They are able to explain their ideas about texts they have read and prepare their ideas before they write.

• Questioning – Teachers use a range of questioning strategies to establish children’s current understanding and develop their learning.

• Modelled Writing – Teachers model Writing and editing to demonstrate the high expectations they have. They verbally ‘think aloud’ in order to make the Writing process explicit and provide a rich and varied vocabulary for the children to utilise in their own work. This happens daily, through sentence accuracy

• Shared Writing – Teachers use the ideas from the children to create shared pieces of Writing. This enables the children to see the Writing process in action as well as having pride and ownership over the finished piece.

• Editing – All children are signposted to regular opportunities for reviewing and editing their own and the work of others.

• Working walls – Teachers and children regularly update working walls to ensure learning is documented within a unit of work.

Year Group Curriculum Coverage Overview