Covid-19 has had a significant impact on the quality of children’s writing. As a result of this, we have revised the way we teach writing so that the children are taught in a very structured way. Our aim is to ensure that pupils have all the skills they need, as well as the stamina, to become confident and independent writers.
At Mather Street Primary School, the teaching of writing within the English curriculum has been carefully considered to enable our pupils to become confident and creative writers.
In EYFS, the children are given the opportunity to ‘mark make’ in all areas of the continuous provision using a variety of different materials. During phonics, the children are taught to form their letters correctly and how to write a simple sentence. So that the children are given the opportunity to consolidate and apply their writing skills, they are encouraged to retell familiar stories and write for real-life purposes.
As they progress through school, the children are given the opportunity to study high-quality texts as part of our reading offer.
As we want our children to become outstanding writers, they need to understand what outstanding writing is so that they know what they are working towards. Therefore, every unit is based around a carefully constructed ‘WAGOLL’ (What A Good One Looks Like). The structure of the WAGOLL is the same as what we expect the children to use and it contains all the language features that we want them to include in their own writing.
This academic year, we have reviewed the way we teach writing to give the children more opportunities to apply grammatical features they have been taught independently. During the summer term, we will be applying the changes we have made and teachers will be teaching the modified units. All teaching staff have received training from One Education which has been adapted to provide additional bespoke CPD from our English leader.
Feedback
During the lesson, pupils’ work will be live-marked by the adults in the room to address any misconceptions. Following the lesson, the books will be marked for accuracy. Errors will be identified and acknowledged using the federation’s marking code.
At the start of each lesson from Year 2 upwards, there is a starter activity that is completed by the children in green pen. It could be corrections, consolidation or challenge responding to the teachers’ marking as appropriate. During this part of the lesson in KS2, teachers will be working with a different focus group each day so that children are directly taught the skills they need to move their writing forward. It is expected that the children will be part of the teacher-led focus group at least once a week. In Year 2, there is more flexibility to allow the teacher to support individuals or groups as needed.