Meadowbank Writing Approach

Writing at Meadowbank Primary School

"The children are empowered to make their own choices - they work collaboratively to choose their own authors and genres".

"I like writing because We can bring our imagination to life."

"sometimes just keeping writing my ideas down and they turn into a story."

"Our teaching cycle immerse the children in the writing genre, content and style so they become a writer themselves."

"I know when I have been successful because when I read it through, I feel proud.

Writing at Meadowbank Primary School Our aims ·To build on prior understanding and knowledge ·To enable creativity and independence ·To secure and underpin writing with fundamental grammar and punctuation skills ·To widen vocabulary and teach careful choices ·To expose children to a wealth of texts and genres ·To make writing purposeful and meaningful ·To model writing with the children and provide opportunities for “talk” ·To set high expectations of all children ·To encourage reflection and innovation of written pieces To promote ambition for writing

How we teach writing ‘Effective composition involved articulating and communicating ideas and then organising them coherently as a reader. This requires clarity, awareness of the audience, purpose and context and increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar…’

National Curriculum 2014 At Meadowbank, writing is taught across the school linked to the half termly "Big Question" in each year group. This is planned collaboratively with the children and teaching team and allows for purposeful links to be made to reading and other subject disciplines. We aim to immerse the children in their half termly focus to empower them to be confident when articulating their learning.

Within early years and Key Stage 1, children are taught story writing using Tales Toolkit and Drawing club, aimed at developing skills and characteristics of effective learning including Language, Literacy, Oracy and Creativity. All children are involved, allowing them to lead the stories they tell.

How we teach writing “There is always a clear purpose for writing which seamlessly links with the topic work chosen by the children so they want to write and that is clear in their work at all levels".

Through research methodologies and the sharing of best practise, a structured sequenced approached to the teaching of writing is used here at Meadowbank, where our children are immersed in the writing genre and the text in which they are exploring.

This teaching cycle has been developed based upon literature and pedagogical studies by Liz Chamberlain and Emma Caulfield, where children move through a sequence to empower them to be able to write successfully.

Reading and Writing float on a sea of talk

Our Writing Cycle ‘Our writing cycle has been carefully divided in to three key phases of learning and progression in order to provide children with the tools, knowledge and expertise they need in order to be successful.

Phase 1 Children are immersed into literature and discussions facilitate understanding.

Phase 2 Children explore key features of text genres, looking closely at language and grammatical structures.

Phase 3 Children plan, write and edit their work.

Our Writing Cycle Phase 1 - The Hook and Understanding as a reader This is the phase in which children are "hooked" into their learning and begin to understand the text as a reader - the children are immersed into the text genre and topic they will be exploring. “…using these as hooks and new ways to stimulate the children gets them excited in a lesson and it’s this excitement and engagement means they’ll achieve most” (Paretti, 2013) For example: ·They will read and sequence the text ·They will discuss the characters and their emotions ·They will retrieve key information ·They will draw out information to summarise what they have read ·They will make inferences about characters, themes and behaviours This is where the development of word understanding, inference, authors word choices and how meaning is enhanced, sequence of texts and retrieval of key information is embedded to show a true understanding.

Our Writing Cycle Phase 2 - Understanding as a writer This phase of our writing cycle is where the children are taught to understand the text they are exploring as a writer.

For example: They will explore the key features of the text genres They will locate examples within texts They will discuss the effect and purpose of the key features They will analyse the layout and organisation They will practise key grammatical structures and punctuation They will be taught explicit ambitious vocabulary to widen their capital This is where teacher’s embed the analysis and exploration of structure, language and organisation; the development of knowledge, widening of vocabulary; and the practise and application of punctuation and grammar specific to the focus text genre.

Our Writing Cycle Phase 3- Composing and Editing This phase of our writing cycle is where the children become the writer and apply skills and knowledge into composing their own piece of writing.

For example: They plan and map out their ideas They work collaboratively or independently complete an extended writing piece They read and edit paragraphs and sentence structures They read and evaluate their own and others work using peer review structure This is where teachers embed the use of shared, modelled, supported and guided writing to build independence.

Our Writing Cycle As they move through school, children will be taught to write a range of genres, made exiting and enriching by our dedication to pupil agency and a unique curriculum approach.

narratives Stories Recounts

Formal Letters

"We are preparing our children to be writers in an ever-changing world."

As the children move through school, they will be taught to write:

Debates

news reports Informal letter

Descriptions travel Blogs

Discussions Recounts

Poems Explanations

Scripts

Instructions podcasts Diaries

Developing a Writing capital Throughout your child's time at Meadowbank, we will endeavor to widen their writing capital through enriching and memorable experiences, which will help shape them as they grow as a writer.

We aim to: Invite local authors in to speak to the children Work closely with the local high school to run writing workshops Run reading and writing buddies across KS1 and KS2 Work with local poets to run workshops Enter and promote writing competitions for the children to take part in Share children's writing across the school Make writing purposeful and meaningful to the children