Intent

At Dogsthorpe Academy, we strive to ensure that high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. We maintain through each key stage and year group that we want our children to develop their vocabulary understanding, write in a range of different genres and continuously develop their spelling, grammar, and punctuation skills.

Implementation

Our programmes of study for writing at key stage 2 consists of two key dimensions

• transcription (spelling and handwriting)
• composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing)

We aim to develop pupils’ skills in these two dimensions.  In addition, pupils are also taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing.

Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words.

Effective composition involves forming, articulating and communicating ideas, and then organising them coherently for a reader. This requires clarity, awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Writing also depends on fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy handwriting.

At Dogsthorpe Academy, writing is taught based on Jane Considine's The Write Stuff, with teachers having the freedom to adapt this to best suit the needs of their learners. Experiences are woven throughout each unit to give children the chance to develop their vocabulary whilst talk also plays a key part in the planning sequence, with children making 'chottings' throughout lessons to explore words and phrases. Children's ideas are captured on sentence stacking displays, clearly visible in every classroom. Children are encouraged to take ownership of their work from the very start in Key Stage 1, learning how to edit and reflect on their writing in each unit, promoting confidence in their own ability.

Grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) is taught both are part of writing lessons and as short stand-alone sessions, with children have the opportunity to both practise and apply these skills. Children have access to Spelling Shed to  continue to learn independently at home and in school.

Impact

Children will progress through and eventually leave Dogsthorpe Academy being able to;

• Write for a range of purposes - both narrative and non fiction texts
• Use their vast knowledge vocabulary to excite, inform or entertain the reader
• Understand a range of punctuation and the effect it can have on the reader in both writing and reading
• Understand the various sentence types that can be used to support different genres
• Spell using their phonetic knowledge and spelling rules put in place
• Speak clearly, fluently and coherently, to be able to listen attentively with understanding, pleasure and empathy and contribute to group discussions effectively