Writing:

Our approach

It is our intent at High Hazels Academy to provide pupils with a high-quality education in English that will teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively.

Our writing lessons are linked closely to reading, where pupils develop their writing using high quality texts. A well-chosen text provides rich language models and structures from which children can learn how writing works and the effect it can have on a reader. With a rich diet of quality texts and enriching experiences, children will be able to find their own reasons to write and develop a style that fits the purpose, audience and form intended.

At High Hazels Academy writing is a crucial part of our curriculum. All children from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills during their writing lessons and across the whole curriculum.

To be able to do this effectively we implement our writing lessons based on the Rosenshine principles of instruction. Pupils focus on developing effective transcription and effective composition as well as developing an awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. At High Hazels Academy, we want pupils to see modelled writing, so we engage in cooperative writing, showing the teacher as a writer, allows children to be supported when developing their ideas, skills and writing style.  We also intend for pupils to leave school being able to use fluent, legible and speedy handwriting.

With regards to spelling our focus in KS1 is to develop a sound knowledge of phonics using segmenting and oral blending technique to help them to spell. Alongside this, teachers show pupils how to understand the relationships between words, to understand their meaning, utilising the No Nonsense spelling programme. They will also teach pupils how to work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning. Pupils will develop memory strategies from KS1 to help them remember how to spell difficult words.

At High Hazels we want pupils’ to celebrate their writing through authentic publication and presentation of their work. We believe that publishing work for an audience gives children a real purpose to write and creates a sense of pride.   This can be done in a variety of ways from sharing their work online, to collecting poems to create a class anthology, holding story slams, to performing a play they are studying. We want every child at High Hazels School to be the best writer they can be.

Writing teaching structure

Writing progression of skills

Long term English curriculum plan