Intent

Goldenhill Primary Academy believes that developing strong English skills is essential for progressing across the curriculum and preparing for adult life. All teachers have a responsibility to develop pupils’ competence in reading, writing, speaking and listening and to ensure that pupils build the language skills necessary to fully access the curriculum.

The school recognises the effect that a fluent, legible and coherent writing style can have on a pupils’ progress, both inside and outside of the school environment. At our school, we provide a broad and balanced literacy curriculum which encompasses focussed writing practice, including handwriting, phonics, spelling, widening vocabulary, and writing for different styles, purposes and audiences.

Aims:

• To guide and nurture each individual on their own personal journeys to becoming successful writers.
• Provide exciting writing opportunities and experiences that engage and enhance all pupils.
• We want all children to acquire a wide vocabulary and to be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school.
• We want all children to have a solid understanding of grammar and apply it effectively to their writing.
• We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
• We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a legible, cursive, individual handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school.
• We want every child to have a good knowledge of phonics to springboard children to becoming fluent writers.
• To plan a progressive curriculum to build upon previous teaching, with regular assessment to ensure each child’s needs are met to reach their full potential.
   

Implementation

At Goldenhill Primary Academy, we follow a whole school mastery approach to writing through the programme ‘Pathways to Write’. Writing is taught 5 times per week across the school. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Key skills are taught and repeated; there are multiple opportunities throughout each unit to use and apply the skills until they can be mastered fully. Within each sequence, there are many opportunities for incidental short- burst writing with an extended written outcome built up to by the end of each unit.

Alongside key writing skills, we also ensure extensive opportunities to develop and apply vocabulary. Vocabulary boxes are incorporated in every unit which give guidance on tiers of vocabulary and of the vocabulary that is developed within the unit. This includes opportunities for application of the word list words for years 3/4 and years 5/6 and common exception words for year 1 and year 2. At Goldenhill, we aim to develop word depth with children by delivering a planned approach to explaining words and meaningful, repeated exposure to them.

Within each year group, a range of genres are covered to ensure the breadth required by the National Curriculum is achieved. These are both non-fiction and fiction. Not all genres are covered in every year group but writing outcomes have been carefully chosen to suit each specific year group; some outcomes are hybrid texts (see genre map).

Each unit of work is expected to last 4-6 weeks. The teaching sequence of each unit comprises of 15 sessions, but each session may take longer than an actual lesson depending on the class.

Planning follows the sequence below:

Session 1: Gateway 

This is an opportunity to hook the pupils into the context of learning and to assess previously

taught mastery skills. A short writing task is set at the end of this session to assess the

application of Gateway skills. (The focus is on assessment of previously taught skills and is

not intended to assess pupils on skills or genres that they have not been taught before.)

Where pupils are struggling to apply and to use Gateways keys, these should be built into

the planning of the unit to ensure more personalised learning. 

Sessions 2-11: Pathway

In this section, the Mastery skills are introduced with many opportunities along the way to

practise and apply these skills in different writing tasks. The tasks use genres that the pupils

will be most familiar with such as character or setting descriptions, dialogue, diary entries,

instructions, poetry and sentence work, providing a range of on-going evidence for writing

assessment.  

Sessions 12-15: ‘Writeway’

This final section of the sequence comprises of 4 sessions. It begins with sectioning and

sequencing texts using a model. If the final outcome is narrative based, then this will usually

be the text which has been read or for younger pupils a shortened version to support re telling has been included. If the outcome is a non-fiction text, then a model will be available

in the resource section. Two sessions have been allocated for the writing of the text in the

Writeaway, but this may be extended depending on the year group and what is being

written. Suggestions have been made as to how this could be structured but it needs to be

responsive to pupils’ needs. Within the Writeaway, pupils are encouraged to plan, write,

check, edit, re-draft and publish as required; with the focus on using and applying the mastery skills they have been taught. 

The Keys: Gateway, Mastery and Feature

The keys are listed at the start of each unit.

• Gateway keys are the skills that should have been previously taught.

• Mastery keys are the main skills that will be focused on throughout the unit. The symbol is used each time there is a focus on a mastery skill.

• Feature keys are the features of the writing genre that is the outcome for

each unit. Each set of Feature keys has the same structure – vocabulary of the genre, how sentences and tenses are used and the overall structure of each one.

The Feature keys ensure that there is both consistency within the teaching of a genre across school and progression with the genre outcomes between year.

Pupils Working Below ARE 

The Progression in Mastery Skills map is used to support teachers in tracking skills back for pupils working below age-related expectations. For example, if pupils in year 5 are not ready to be using relative clauses (if this is one of the mastery keys), tracking back through the document might take the focus back to year 1 if this is where the pupil is working at. The focus would then be joining clauses using and instead of relative clauses.

Pupils Working at Greater Depth

The ideas and work are pitched at ARE, but there are suggested activities for greater depth pupils in most lessons and for every final writing outcome (See LTP).

Poetry

At Goldenhill, we also follow a mastery approach to teaching poetry through the Programme ‘Pathways to Poetry’. Each year group will complete 4 units of poetry per year, each unit lasting approximately 1-2 weeks. This approach to teaching poetry ensures full coverage of poetry in the National Curriculum as well as many spoken language objectives. Throughout these units, a wide range of poetry forms and styles are investigated with progression in writing skills weaved throughout. Through the teaching of these poetry units, we aim to focus on collaboration and group work, enhance work on vocabulary, spoken language, reading and writing and develop performance poetry.

Planning follows the sequence below:

Session 1: Gateway

This is an opportunity to hook the pupils into the context of learning. They will be introduced to at least one poem and will have the opportunity to learn all or part of it by heart.

Sessions 2-4: Pathway

The first sessions focus on reading and comparing poetry. Pupils will identify the Poetry keys in poems before beginning to collect language and develop ideas ready for composing their own poems.

Session 5: Writeaway

This is a focus on writing composition. Pupils will investigate a model poem and share with a friend. They will plan and write their own version of a poem

The Poetry keys

The Poetry keys are listed at the start of each unit. These are taken from the ‘Poetry Feature Keys Progression’ document to ensure progression in poetry devices and language. Each unit has two poetry keys which are developed throughout the unit.

Teaching

The school is aware of the various elements of English that contribute to pupils’ writing development and will organise lessons and activities according to the skills being developed and the age and development stages of pupils as follows:

Phonics and spelling:

Phonics:

At Goldenhill Primary Academy, phonics is taught using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. The delivery and content of phonics sessions will adhere to the school’s Phonics Policy.

Spelling

At Goldenhill, we follow a mastery approach to spellings through the programme ‘Pathways to Spell’ from Year 2 – Year 6. Children in Year 1 along with children in Year 2, who have not passed their Phonics Screening Check, will continue to follow the SSP programme ‘Little Wandle’ (See phonics policy).

Through weekly teaching of spelling objectives and development of a whole school approach to word transcription, vocabulary development and proofreading, the programme aims to:

• Ensure that pupils become confident and competent spellers

• Enthuse and fascinate pupils about words and language

• Develop pupils spoken language skills

• Promote collaborative learning in the classroom

• Develop an engaging spelling environment across school

• Effectively reduce teacher workload with highly detailed, progressive and engaging planning for the delivery of spelling teaching

In order to facilitate effective learning, pupils will be taught to spell in a number of ways: 

• Developmental approach – pupils moving from a focus on phonics and knowledge of GPCs through to patterns and the look of a word at a pace appropriate to their age
• Generalisation approach – if you know how to spell cat and bat you can have a go at hat and pat
• Rote-visual memorisation e.g. look/say/cover/write/check

In this way, pupils will develop key knowledge about words and the way in which the English

language is made up.

Phonemic knowledge – the understanding of sounds and grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) to represent words

Orthographic knowledge – the letters or groups of letters that are used to represent words

including the look of a word, letter shapes and the order

Morphological knowledge – the meaning of the word or the meaning of each component in a word. A morpheme being the smallest unit of meaning in a word

Etymological awareness – the origins of words and their meanings e.g. knowledge that chef is a word which is French in origin helps you to learn to spell it with ch rather than sh

The following principles guide the Pathways to Spell approach to teaching spelling:

• We are determined that children become excited and fascinated by words through investigation of patterns and links between words
• Spoken language underpins all the lessons – talk, exploration, play, hypothesising and experimenting is the foundation of the programme
• Collaborative learning is valued and encouraged
• As children learn to spell in different ways, the programme ensures that pupils have the opportunity to learn through a repertoire of multi-sensory approaches
• Repetition of rules and patterns year on year is key to developing spelling knowledge in the long-term memory, with key elements reviewed each week
• Lessons include support and challenge for the range of learners in every class
• Developing a spelling environment in the classroom supports learners and raises the profile of spelling when pupils are writing
• Application of knowledge beyond the spelling lesson is a vital component that needs to be embedded across school

Structure & Learning Cycle

It is a comprehensive and progressive programme with a clear, research-based teaching sequence. Each week combines consolidation of previously taught spelling patterns and rules in conjunction with new teaching with opportunities to reflect on learning. This will support pupils in development of key metacognitive strategies. Every year begins with consolidation of rules from previous year groups which pupils often find tricky, or commonly misspell. Each term, there is a focus on common exception or word list words and homophones where appropriate. Each week consists of two spelling objectives: a review of a previously taught spelling pattern or rule and a mastery spelling focus – the key learning outcome for the week. 

Y2 Learning Cycle

In Year 2, each week contains four spelling sessions, lasting approximately 20 mins each. There will be some revision of key phonics teaching e.g. alternative spellings for different phonemes but the focus will be on the national curriculum spelling rules and patterns which need to be taught in this age group.

KS2 Learning Cycle

In KS2, there are three spelling session in each week and they should last between 20-30 minutes each.

Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar

During the first half of the Autumn Term, Y1 – Y6 will follow ‘The Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar’ which comprises of 20 lessons per year group. Each of these lessons revise / teach sentence structure before moving on to writing for different genres.

Handwriting:

At Goldenhill Primary Academy, we are very proud of our pupil’s handwriting and take particular care in our handwriting style. We follow a whole school approach to teaching handwriting using the scheme ‘Letter Join’.

Handwriting is a basic skill that influences the quality of work throughout the curriculum. By the end of Key Stage 2 all pupils should have the ability to produce fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy joined-up handwriting, and to understand the different forms of handwriting used for different purposes.

Our intention is to make handwriting an automatic process that does not interfere with creative and mental thinking.

Aims:

• To develop a neat, legible, speedy handwriting style using continuous cursive letters, which leads to producing letters and words automatically in independent writing.
• To establish and maintain high expectations for the presentation of written work.
• For pupils to understand, by the end of Year 6, the importance of neat presentation and the need for different letterforms (cursive, printed or capital letters) to help communicate meaning clearly.

Expectations
All teaching staff are encouraged to model the printed or cursive style of handwriting chosen for each year group in our school in all their handwriting, whether on whiteboards, displays or in pupils’ books.

Consistency throughout the school
Pupils should experience coherence and continuity in the learning and teaching of handwriting across all school years and be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their work. Our objective is to help pupils enjoy learning and developing their handwriting with a sense of achievement and pride.

Formal teaching of handwriting will be carried out regularly and systematically to ensure pupils develop an efficient, legible handwriting style, as outlined below:

EYFS

Letter formation will be taught alongside phonic development during daily sessions in accordance with the phonics curriculum outlined in the Little Wandle designated phonics scheme. Little Wandle practice sheets will be used as each new grapheme is introduced, using the Little Wandle catch phrase for formation.

Early years practitioners will focus on developing fine motor skills such as making marks on paper, whiteboards, sand trays and tablets, as well as letter learning to familiarise letter shapes, formation and vocabulary.

KS1

In KS1, children will receive 3 handwriting sessions per week for 20 minutes per session. These sessions will focus on:

• continuing with gross and fine motor skills exercises
• strengthening handwriting, learning and practice
• numerals, capitals and printed letters
• KS1 SATs SPaG exercises

Year 1: In Year 1, children are taught how to sit correctly for handwriting using the tripod grip, the different letter families and how to write capital letters, printed letters, and numbers and symbols alongside cursive handwriting.

Year 2: In Year 2, children are taught to improve cursive letter formation and orientation of letters through regular practice which supports spelling, grammar and punctuation. Activities include; Letter families, high frequency words, joining practice, sequencing sentences and dictation exercises. With the regular handwriting practice throughout this module, children should now be developing the fluency and speed of their writing.

KS2

In LKS2, children will receive 2 handwriting sessions per week for 20 minutes per session.

Year 3:  In Year 3, pupils should be using joined handwriting throughout their independent writing. During this year, children are taught to improve the legibility, consistency and quality of their handwriting through a variety of resources which link handwriting to other areas of the curriculum. The handwriting practice for this module cover a variety of curriculum topics: Dictation, double letters, number vocabulary, palindromes, tongue twisters, MFL (French and Spanish), onomatopoeia, simile, WOW words and spellings.

Year 4: In Year 4, handwriting sessions focus on using handwriting practice to support other subjects in the curriculum and, at the same time, builds on fluency and consistency. This module aims to promote meaningful links with other subjects such as English, maths, science, geography, French and Spanish. Making such links enables children to apply the skills they are learning in context and also provides depth to the curriculum. Learners will continue to build on producing fluent, consistent and legible handwriting through the regular practice offered in this module’s lessons. On concluding this module, children will have practised applying size-appropriate handwriting to all areas of the curriculum whilst maintaining fluency and legibility.

In UKS2, children will receive 2 handwriting sessions per week for 20 minutes per session. These sessions will focus on:

• reinforcing cursive handwriting across the curriculum
• form-filling/labelling using printed and capital letters
• dictation exercises promoting quick note-taking and speedy handwriting
• KS2 SATs SPaG practice

Year 5: In Year 5, lessons will continue to build on combining fluent handwriting with other subjects across the curriculum. In this module, pupils will have plenty of opportunity to develop the stamina and skills to write at length, with accurate spelling and punctuation. Pupils are encouraged to work towards producing consistently neat and well-presented handwriting in all curriculum subjects. By the end of this module, children should be producing cursive writing automatically, enabling them to focus on the content of their work rather than the process of writing.

Year 6: In Year 6, pupils will be presented with a range of tasks where they have to decide on an appropriate style of handwriting. This module promotes speedy, fluent writing. Challenging dictation exercises will refine pupils’ revising and checking skills as well as boosting their handwriting speed, stamina and fluency. A range of curriculum-based activities will give pupils the opportunity to practise writing at length. By the end of this module, children should be able to adapt their handwriting for a range of tasks and purposes and to create different effects. They should be clear about what standard of handwriting is appropriate for a particular task, for example, quick notes, a final handwritten version, an un-joined style or capital letters. All of these writing styles are covered in this module.

Impact

Pupils’ writing ability will be assessed in line with the school’s Primary Assessment Policy.

The EYFS Profile will be completed for each pupil in the final term of the year in which they reach age five.

• Pupils’ developing abilities as writers are assessed through ongoing formative assessment. This process occurs through daily interactions with learners, marking, verbal feedback, modelled examples and fix-its/challenges in green.
• The pupils’ portfolio of writing produced from the short purposeful writing tasks in the Pathway and the Writeaway piece of writing provide clear assessment information for making end of term and end of year judgements and also provide a wealth of information for moderation across classes/year groups.  Writing assessment grids for each year group are used as a tool to support assessment of groups or individuals.
• As for all core subjects, class assessment data for Writing is captured every term. Assessment judgements are derived through analysis of progress against the writing statements and the agreed methods used to convert these to the relevant statement on the school attainment and progress system DCPro.

Working at the expected standard – a pupil whose work evidences all of the highlighted

objectives across several pieces of writing would be on track for expected standard at the

end of the year.

Working towards the expected standard – pupils who have not been able to evidence all of

the highlighted objectives in their writing would be working towards and may need to be

targeted in the areas they have not been able to evidence.

Working at greater depth within the expected standard – pupils who are demonstrating

writing at greater depth will have consistently evidenced all the objectives across a range of

writing, including in writing across the curriculum. There should also be highlighting of the

relevant greater depth objectives in the top right-hand side box of the grids.

• The areas for development identified by writing assessment grids / marking & feedback (particularly of independent writing) will inform tailored interventions and support.

Evidence of Progress

• In order to provide evidence of children’s progress, each pupil will produce 4/5 pieces of ‘Best’ writing per term comprising of a range of genres.
• Evidence from the English book may also be used to support any judgements made against the writing statements. However, teachers should be mindful of the degree of modelling that occurred where non-independent pieces of writing are being used for assessment purposes.

The areas for development identified by detailed marking (particularly of independent writing) will inform the setting of quality first, teacher-led l interventions