Implementation

At Rounds Green Primary School, we have designed our writing curriculum around the two core strands of transcription and composition. We have implemented systems and comprehensive overviews to ensure that learning is progressive and cumulative.

Transcription

We use the following methodologies for the transcriptional aspects of writing throughout the school:

• Handwriting                                                  Kinetic Letters
• Phonics and Spelling                                   Little Wandle and No Nonsense Spelling
• ​​​​Grammar                                                      An adaptation of the Pie Corbett Grammar                                                                                                  Progression Document           

Composition

At Rounds Green Primary School, we use the Talk for Writing (TfW) approach across our school as our methodology to teach children to become independent, confident and creative writers. Talk for Writing is effective because is based on how children learn and is rooted in research and best practice. The inclusive approach moves children systematically and supportively from being a dependent writer through to an independent writer. Oracy and reading are central to the TfW process and it equips children with the skills of cohesion and composition. Talk for Writing also supports children with English as an Additional Language by immersing them in our language and scaffolding the acquisition of it.

The strategies that teachers explicitly teach through the Talk for Writing process are:

1. Modelling

2. Selecting, judging and applying linguistic devices and words for effect.

3. Demonstrating

4. Evaluating

5. Memorising

6. Instructing

7. Recall/revising

8. Innovating – manipulating what they know to create something new  

Impact

By the time the children reach the end of our writing curriculum, they will have experienced a rich variety of the finest literature, will have written in a range of text types and for a variety of different audiences and purposes. The impact of the curriculum will be that they become an effective communicator through the medium of writing, have developed authorial agency and are able to engage in meaningful discussions about their own work and the work of others. Writing evidence will be recorded in writing books.

Writing will be assessed using:

• Cold tasks (at the start of units) whereby teachers assess children’s writing in order to inform their planning, address misconceptions and move learning on.
• Hot tasks (after the unit has been completed) whereby teachers assess the impact of the teaching.
• Assessment against objectives for each year group will be routinely cross-checked by teachers both at moderation and as an assessment tool when analysing the outcome of the children’s hot tasks. This assessment document will be used to moderate and standardise our assessments.
• Writing moderation: year group, Phase, whole-school and cluster/academy writing moderation led by teachers in school.
• Year 2 and Year 6, TAF (teacher framework) and exemplification documents are used as a reference during the in-school moderation of these specific year groups.