We understand the importance of reading in the writing process, and have therefore mapped our high-quality reading texts to support our writing lessons in each unit. This not only supports pupils’ writing but enhances their Cultural Capital and broader schema by linking to the driver for each half term. By applying aspects of cognitive load theory, our approach ensures knowledge and vocabulary sticks in pupils’ long term memory.
We provide opportunities for Oracy in all lessons, allowing children to see the importance of this skill, not just in supporting their writing but also their character.
Within a writing lesson, children are given the opportunity to learn through a three-part approach.
The first part – ‘initiate’.
This is where the children are exposed to high quality texts, different forms of media, a sound, picture or video. During this stage, pupils are immersed in contextual vocabulary. It is an opportunity for vocabulary to be ‘rinsed out,’ evaluated and compared.
The next part – ‘model’.
This is the bridge between the initiate and the enable stage. It is here where quality 1st teaching will be seen. Strong modelling of accurate sentences that are rich with vocabulary.
The final part – ‘enable’.
Children should be ready to write their own sentence and/or paragraph. They will be able to use the teacher model and other scaffolds available to them, such as but not limited to the working wall, the interactive white board, sentence starters, spelling mats, word class mats and Sentifix.
Learning objectives are sequenced, allowing children to build on prior learning to successfully achieve new learning. We remain on objectives until at least 80% of learners have developed a secure understanding.
Opportunities for retrieval practice are present in lessons, and teachers have a solid understanding of prior learning of their pupils.
Knowledge Organisers are used in Writing lessons and are beginning to have impact on learning. These provide children with the key core vocabulary and examples of their focused objectives. They also display a WAGOLL – what a good one looks like – for the writing genre, so all pupils can see the features that make a good piece.
We create strong home school partnerships with parents and guardians, which enables parents to know what children are learning. Our subscriptions to online learning platforms, such as Century, Spelling Shed and Nessy allow home assignments to be set as homework.
At Holy Rosary our aim is for the children to love writing; to be passionate about writing and to be proud of what they have written. We believe that a quality English Curriculum, which follows the National Curriculum, should develop the children’s love of reading, writing and Oracy.
The knowledge, skills and vocabulary learned in writing will set a child up to be lifelong learners who are able to express their thoughts, ideas and creativity. One of the ways we do this is by immersing pupils in stories and high quality texts which will enhance their writing. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We aim to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning. We believe that all children should be given time to edit and improve their own work, building on their resilience and their stamina.
At Holy Rosary we believe that all children should be able to express their ideas through writing. We want pupils to acquire a good knowledge of vocabulary, a secure and strong understanding of grammar and the use of punctuation. The approach that we use at Holy Rosary allows for rich language discussions to take place in every classroom. We recognise the importance of having deep and developed vocabulary, as it improves all areas of communication – listening, speaking, reading and writing. We aim for all children to be able to spell new words correctly by applying their knowledge of learned spelling rules.
