MILE END SCHOOL POLICIES WRITING POLICY

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1 WRITING POLICY RATIONALE Curriculum for Excellence highlights the fact that Literacy is fundamental to all areas of learning, as it unlocks the wider curriculum. Because of this, all teachers have responsibility for promoting language and literacy development. Building the Curriculum 1 Writing is a major part of the curriculum and along with reading, listening and talking, makes a considerable contribution to the development of children as thinkers and learners. Literacy across learning should be considered at all times. Critical literacy is crucial in empowering children to appreciate how text can be used to influence others. To develop critical literacy children need to know that: texts are not neutral, that they represent particular views we should consider the motive of the author and provide children with opportunities to consider and clarify their own attitudes and values Writing involves a set of complex skills that will not develop without structured teaching and practice. At Mile End school we are using Big Writing to help children focus on the four core targets of Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation (V.C.O.P.). Throughout the school the children will use a variety of texts as a model of good writing to improve their own writing. AIMS At Mile End school we aim to: Link planning, teaching and assessment /tracking in order to raise levels of attainment and achievement in writing Teach writing in a structured way to ensure progression, continuity and consistency HOW WRITING IS DELIVERED AT MILE END SCHOOL All writing tasks should be authentic, meaningful, relevant and offer some choice to pupils. Even our youngest children should be given the opportunity to play with language and should be encouraged to talk like a writer and to write for a range of purposes even at the mark making stage. It is crucial that contexts are available to support this to enable an understanding of the range of purposes for writing. Children should be exposed to a balance of personal, imaginative and functional writing over the year from the earliest mark making stages of writing. Interdisciplinary links should be exploited where possible. Children should engage in VCOP activities at least 4 times a week. This work will normally be undertaken orally and may be delivered prior to a writing session, the children should be guided to talk like a writer. These VCOP sessions should not exceed 10 minutes and should be playful in approach. All children should have at least one formal writing session a week. Staff should not feel that a complete piece of work should be produced. Spending a few weeks developing character, setting, plot etc. may be of more benefit to pupils. Some classes will benefit from spending a series of writing sessions rehearsing, drafting, revising and editing their work, for some children this will be done in part through drawings. Staff should gain support from the SMT if unsure of which approach will best meet the needs of their learners in terms of developing style and structure of writing.

2 Staff should be mindful of how long children are asked to write for and should build in brain breaks if writing for extended periods. Children should not generally be writing for longer than 45 minutes without a break and for less time for young children and those with some additional support needs. Glow should be used when possible to develop writing with blogs being a superb means of peers and staff offering constructive feedback. QUESTIONING Effective questioning is the one of the most crucial aspects in the teaching of literacy. The types of questions a teacher uses have a direct impact on the development of the pupils thinking skills and their ability to use language to explain meaning. Questioning can challenge and engage the pupils in their own learning; it can promote problem solving and help them understand the writer s skills. Questioning can develop their reasoning, their analytical skills and their understanding. CLOSED OPEN LOWER ORDER HIGHER ORDER Questions call for a simple factual response and may often wer answered by Yes or No Questions invite a more extensive response, often without e rightness or wrongness being an issue Questions may simply call for a memorised fact and/or may a simple who, when, where?response to a piece of text. It may a for asimple description of a person, place or incident taken rom the text. Questions will invite the pupil to explore an idea and give a e e expansive answer. They may be expected to justify, r analyse and to make comparisons and judgements. Staff should try to engage the children in higher order questioning whenever possible to promote deep learning. CLASSROOM ORGANISATION AND METHODOLOGY All classes will have a writing wall where resources such as the Punctuation Pyramid are displayed. The core targets of VCOP will be discussed with the children throughout the week and examples of ambitious vocabulary and sentences openers will be displayed for guidance during a writing lesson. Children must be able to link the teaching of skills to opportunities to use them. All classrooms will display examples of good work and children should be provided with some model of the expectation of them. When looking at a text pupils should be encouraged to discuss in pairs both their answer and their explanation behind their thinking using higher order thinking skills. They should be encouraged to find the evidence in the text or note clues that point them towards their thinking. By working collaboratively, pupils are given opportunities to hear other points of view and to widen their own knowledge and understanding. It allows for thinking time and time to articulate these thoughts. The teacher will then have a pool of ideas to gather and discuss rather than a single answer. Staff will use a range of stimuli/props to ensure that learning is motivating and relevant. Staff should use: Big books to look at good examples of writing and look at choices of VCOP and text level work Visual stimuli such as an unusual artifact or piece of art work Cross curricular lessons Aural stimuli

3 Grammar, spelling and handwriting are important technical skills which are developed through specifically taught lessons. During writing lessons children will be expected to demonstrate their abilities and understanding of these skills. Each of these areas is covered later in this policy. From time to time whole school writing tasks will be set to help us celebrate the writing process and share achievements more widely. Authors may be invited into school to support to motivate our pupils ASSESSMENT A balance of formative and summative assessment will be used. Formative assessment will be carried out routinely with pupils making use of self and peer assessment. Staff are encouraged to be creative in their approach and to consider approaches to peer assessment such as Q&A of the author (pupil) to clarify thinking. All writing tasks should have a clear Learning Intention and Success Criteria should be agreed with children whenever possible. Feedback given to children should focus on agreed targets and always offer advice on how to improve writing. Children should be guided to evaluate their own work against the pupil friendly assessment criteria and be guided to establish their baseline and set next steps. All children should be challenged and it may be appropriate to agree targets with some groups including the very able prior to the lesson to ensure adequate pace and challenge. Some classes may consider making use of an Authors Chair to showcase the children s efforts. Children should be asked to respond to the feedback given and improve their writing although rewriting entire pieces is not always the best use of time. Children will be formally assessed in August, November, March and again in June. Progress should be recorded on the child s personal criterion scale. This information will be uploaded onto E1 writing tracker to measure progress. Staff will routinely meet across year groups and stages to moderate standards. MARKING WORK Ensure consistency by using the school correction code. Display the correction code in your classroom. Actively involve pupils. They should self-check / peer-check work before submission. Make clear you expect them to act on your comments e.g. using spelling strategies to learn problematic words / making sure capitalisation is accurate in their next piece of work. Mark selectively. Mark according to your learning intention/success criteria. What has been done well and areas to improve are equally important. It is appropriate to highlight other areas that could improve the writing for example spelling or presentation. Give feedback as quickly as possible. The most effective feedback occurs while the pupils are still on task. THE WRITING PROCESS The youngest children in Nursery are encouraged to mark make for a range of purposes to explore the link between reading and writing. Synthetic phonics approaches encourages children to write independently as soon as possible. Following mastering the formation of initial sounds and blends children begin recording simple CVC words, then progressing on to a simple sentence. So as not to limit the creativity and development of ideas, the teacher may sometimes act as scribe until the pupils are ready to write independently. Staff will use professional judgement to ascertain the correct approach to

4 ensure that our pupils gain confidence in their ability to record ideas independently and develop the thinking and ordering skills associated with writing. The following stepped process will, for that reason, be interspersed with independent writing when appropriate for the needs of the pupil. Child draws and Teacher acts as scribe (Use of openers) Child draws, Teacher acts as scribe then child overwrites teacher s writing Child draws, teacher scribes then child writes under teacher s writing The child then progresses onto independent writing SPELLING All children at Mile End will be assessed in spelling in September, February and June. The outcome of the spelling assessment will dictate where the children are placed within our 7 stages of spelling development. The value added of their progress will be considered regularly to ensure that approaches and resources are meeting their needs. The children progress at a rate appropriate for them but most children in mainstream will look at a new list every week. Not every word on the progression should be looked at. No child should spend more than two weeks looking at one group of words without prior agreement of the SFL teacher or the SMT. In the early stages much time should be spent looking at the phonic progression with a focus on common words being given equal weighting to the spelling progression. Where children are working on either stage 6 or 7, staff should consider whether broadening vocabulary would be a more relevant focus at times. Spelling will be formally taught at least three times a week. A group of lessons will be considered and recorded during the first session. The spelling rule will be explored in lesson one and a follow up activity on offer to help support memorising of spellings. Our own practice shows that several shorter spelling tasks are more productive and we ask that all staff work within these parameters. During the second session the children will further explore the rule by making use of interactive resources such as spelling city, the jolly phonics materials, games or a paper-based activity. Learning should be active and engaging. The third spelling session should focus on a performance of understanding, which will help the children share their learning with others. This could be the children displaying their learning through a poster or powerpoint, could be enjoying success in a game or designing a game for others to play. Any approach that allows the children to explore the learning in context is acceptable. The children will be tested in their memory of the spelling rule soon afterwards. Spelling should be taught in an active way with lots of opportunities for different learning styles to feel success. As spelling errors are routinely picked up in written work the following strategy should be used: Look closely at the word. Look at its shape. Draw round its outline.

5 Look for trouble points double letters, a string of vowels etc and concentrate hard on that section of the word. Look for words within words, as a mnemonic aid. Say: Speak the word aloud. Break it down into syllables. Cover: cover the word. Write: write it from memory. Check: if incorrect, begin the process again. All classes should display a list of strategies to use to support pupils in spelling, an example of which is appended to this policy. Pupils should be encouraged to record problematic words in their planners, to review as on-going homework. In a piece of work with lots of spelling errors, highlight 2 or 3 errors (focusing on common words). Write down the correct spelling for the pupil to use LSCWC / develop mnemonics/ write in planner. Staff will be given the opportunity to visit each others classes to observe how colleagues teach spelling through peer observation and also to discuss spelling approaches during moderation meetings once a month. GRAMMAR Staff should ensure that they focus on grammar when looking at texts to identify how the grammar has enhanced the learning. The grammar rubric should be used to help plan and monitor the acquisition and application of grammar rules. HANDWRITING Please see handwriting policy February This policy will be reviewed in 2014