Writing

Our key aim within writing is to create enthusiastic and creative writers that have the required stamina to create a cohesive and well-planned text. We strive to help our children develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well-equipped with the basic skills they need to become life-long learners. 

Careful links are made across the curriculum to ensure that children’s English learning is relevant and meaningful: where possible linking our reading, writing and the topic that we are covering in History and Geography. We ensure that children develop an understanding of how widely writing is used in everyday life and, therefore, how important and useful the skills are that they are learning.

Our intentions in writing are for children to:

• Write for a purpose
• See themselves as real writers
• Take ownership of their writing
• See writing as an interesting and enjoyable process
• Acquire the ability to organise and plan their written work 
• Write across a range of genres with confidence about the style and formality of writing
• Develop their vocabulary to expand their word knowledge beyond their starting points year on year
• Use strategies approriate and individual to them for their spelling to develop and improve based on their year group expectations

See files for progression overviews.

Read to Write

At Dee Point, we have planned our writing curriculum around the texts set out in Literacy Count’s Read to Write units of work. They have been designed by Literacy Counts as a scaffold and a guide for teachers to provide quality first teaching of writing through high-quality literature. These detailed units centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities within and across the curriculum and also signpost wider curriculum enrichments.

Each unit consists of:

• Clear sequential Episodes of Learning
• Model Texts linked to writing outcomes within the unit
• Vocabulary learning and contextualised spelling, grammar and punctuation
• Wider reading for the wider curriculum
• Curriculum Enrichments
• A wealth of resources
• Explicit links to the national curriculum

Units of Work

Units of work are made up of ‘episodes of learning’. These are not prescriptive individual lessons, instead they are suggested activities to be chosen and followed as needed during the unit of work. Teachers have the freedom to tweak and add activities based on teacher assessment to ensure the best outcomes for their class. 

Vehicle and Model Texts

Each unit of work consists of a fiction and non-fiction writing outcome based on one high-quality children’s book. This is known as the ‘vehicle text’. From this vehicle text, a model text has been written for each of the genres to be taught so that children can study the writing skills and vocabulary used. Crucially, the skills and vocabulary choice can then be analysed for their effect on the reader. The model text is written to incorporate language features and vocabulary for that particular year group and is pitched just above greater depth in order to provide a sufficiently high model of expectations for all pupils.

EYFS

Due to the specific needs of our pupils, reception will begin the year with traditional tales, leading on to their first Read to Write text, Little Red. Initially, writing outcomes will be more child-initiated and will be drawn from the wider writing opportunities from the unit. Vocabulary and phonics will form the main focus of the initial units to ensure that high expectations of vocabulary are embedded from the beginning of the year in line with the work we undertake with ‘Word Aware’.

From Spring term, units will begin to follow the structure given in Read to Write, ending the year with writing outcomes in English books as children approach their transition to KS1. Nursery will also begin to use one of the Read to Write texts in Summer term to begin the transition to reception. 

What is the Forgotten News Desk?

The Forgotten News Desk is an immersive theatre adventure for the whole school community designed to celebrate children's creativity and encourage them to find their own voice. 

The project aims are to: 

- engage the whole school - children, staff and parents - in an unforgettable creative adventure 
- provide children, and their families, with access to high quality cultural experiences 
- encourage children to write down and share their ideas, enthusiasms and stories 
- support the development of creative learning practices amongst teachers 

Centred around a beautifully designed installation located in the school playground the project gives children a chance to step inside the magical world of the Forgotten News Desk, meet its Editor and then work together to create a whole school newspaper exploring an issue close to their school’s heart - looking to the future. ‘Everyone has a story to tell’ is the FND’s motto. We hope this project will inspire children to tell their stories by providing them with an authentic reason to write and an exciting creative platform for them to voice their thoughts and idea through. We also hope it will encourage them to recognise the value of listening to the thoughts and ideas of others. 

How Does the Forgotten News Desk Work?

The Forgotten News Desk adventure is made up of several different elements:

1) A journalist class visit - a whole class careers talk-style session during which a blank copy of a newspaper entitled ‘The Blacon Oracle’ is discovered.
2) The Forgotten News Desk lands in the playground (and nobody knows what it is!).
3) A visit to the Forgotten News Desk - children visit the installation in groups of six, accompanied by the Journalist. They meet the Editor and get given their mission - to tell their stories and work together to fill the newspaper’s blank pages.4) Teacher-led writing activities - working as a class to complete their mission and produce an article for the newspaper.
5) A whole school assembly - to deliver the finished, professionally printed copies of The Blacon Oracle and celebrate the children’s work.

By the time children leave our school they will:

• Make good progress from their KS1 results
• Have a love for writing and write for enjoyment
• Be able to produce written work in all areas of the curriculum to a high standard
• Be confident to write for a range of different purposes
• Be able to recognsie the features of writing and how this is appropriate to the text type and genre
• Use a variety of strategies to spell and identify errors within their writing
• Edit and improve their writing

Files to Download