English Writing
English is the basis of all communication and is taught from Nursery through to Year 6.
At Meadhurst, children are immersed in Talk for Writing. Its three phases (Imitation, Innovation and Independent Application) mean that children are explicitly taught how to compose stories using the full range of story structures (e.g. warning tales) and how to create certain effects (e.g. suspense) in their writing. The same process applies to the teaching of non-fiction writing. Children explore quality models, drawing upon their structure and language to create their own pieces of writing. Teachers act as expert models of the writing process in daily shared writing sessions and there are regular opportunities for children’s writing and ideas to be shared, displayed, published and celebrated.
The end goal of the teaching of any writing should be to develop children into successful independent writers, and so at the end of each 'unit' - once all of the teaching, modelling and internalisation of knowledge has taken place - there is an opportunity for children to produce a final, independent piece of work.
Grammar is taught explicitly through Talk for Writing units, as research shows that knowledge is best internalised when taught within a familiar context.
Writing is a primary means of expression, both for personal cognitive purposes and for communicating meaning with others. Pupils learn how to write with confidence, fluency, imagination and accuracy by orchestrating their knowledge of context and composition (text level), grammatical knowledge (sentence level) and knowledge of phonics, word recognition and graphic knowledge (word level).
We provide a wide variety of reasons and purposes for writing and, in the Early Years, provide many opportunities for child-initiated and role-play writing.
Handwriting skills are explicitly taught and built on each year. We use the Letterjoin script at Meadhurst Primary School. Pupils learn to use a tripod grip to support their pre-cursive handwriting in EYFS and Year 1, and begin to join their writing when they are ready. We follow the No Nonsense Spelling programme, in conjunction with teacher-planned grammar activities as part of English lessons, that deliver the skills essential for writing from Year 1 to Year 6.