WRITING
At Elm Wood, we aim to develop children’s enthusiasm and passion for writing. We believe that reading provides a strong pathway into the writing process and encourage our children to read to gain inspiration and ideas for their own work. In all year groups, we teach writing through high-quality texts which have been carefully selected to engage our children in writing through reading. Our range of texts reflects the rich diversity in our school community as we believe seeing a range of representative characters from fiction and real-life will inspire our children to become confident in writing and sharing their own ideas and experiences. Where appropriate, links are made to children’s learning in other subjects, for example Year 5 write a biography of Walter Tull which links to their learning in history about World War 1.
Over their time at the school, children will write a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts, including recounts, news reports, explanation texts, poems and stories of all kinds. We use drama, role-play, storytelling and discussion to engage the imagination, before moving on to vocabulary exploration, sentence work and creative writing. The sequence of lessons in based on the National Curriculum for each year group and we plan and develop our own writing units in school. Weekly spellings are progressive throughout the school and focus on the spelling strategies that are required for each year group. A look, cover, write, check approach is used for homework and we have adopted the Rising Stars Boost spelling scheme to support in teaching spelling effectively.
Beginning in the Early Years and continuing throughout Key Stage 1, children are taught basic skills in writing such as correct letter formation and applying phonics to help them to spell accurately. Children learn to follow simple structures for their writing, for example by sequencing simple stories. Our curriculum teaches the children to add variety and description to their work by developing their vocabulary. By the end of Key Stage 1 children have been taught the fundamentals of punctuation and grammar, alongside developing their enjoyment of writing.
By the end of Year Six, our aim is that children will view themselves as authors. They will be able to apply the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling to their work across a range of text types, as well as being able to re-read, edit and improve their writing. At Elm Wood, we set high expectations and strive for beautiful, cursive handwriting and work that children are proud of.
