Writing
Our writing curriculum at Valley is a book-led curriculum, in which pupils draw inspiration from their class text to stimulate their writing. Pupils writing is underpinned with a strong understanding of grammatical skills and knowledge which progresses in line with the National Curriculum as pupils move through the school.
Pupils are taught key writing skills in discreet Grammar lessons and then given opportunities to apply these skills in a range of contexts, learning to select the most appropriate form, features, vocabulary and tone for the audience and purpose of the piece. They are given high quality examples in the form of WAGOLLs (What a good one looks like) to support them in developing their use of vocabulary, understanding of the features of different texts and identifying effective writing techniques.
Through our book-led curriculum, children will have opportunities to draw upon their ongoing exposure to vocabulary from their own reading, shared reading and the wider curriculum to further support them in making appropriate language choices in their writing.
In order to become confident writers, we believe that pupils must become fluent in their transcription skills which in turn gives their brain more capacity to focus on their ideas and sentence structures. Alongside writing and grammar lessons pupils have discreet spelling lessons, once they have completed the Little Wandle phonics program, which support them in learning the key spellings and spelling rules laid out in the national curriculum. These spellings are also incorporated into writing lessons where applicable to further embed pupils’ learning. Pupils also develop their handwriting in line with the Nelson Thornes progression, which supports pupils in their letter formation, learning to join and developing a personal style once they have become fluent.
Intervention
As with anything, we all learn at different rates and in different ways. in EYFS and KS1 we focus on “keeping up, not catching up” and strive to provide support and early intervention to enable pupils to make the best progress they can. For those pupils who require additional reading and phonics support, we have a variety of small group or 1:1 interventions being run to support children with phonics, writing and reading and accelerate their progress. We begin by establishing the predominant area of need, whether it is the technicality of decoding, their fluency and stamina for reading, breadth of vocabulary or comprehension and intervene with a suitable programme of support. Pupils who need further phonic support and intervention as they move through the school are provided with this through the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up program or writing-specific intervention
Documents
Valley Primary School Grammar and Writing Long term plan Y1-6
