Woodcote Primary SchoolWriting
At Woodcote Primary School, we believe that writing is an integral part of education and success in society. We aim to provide a high-quality writing curriculum that teaches children how to speak, listen, write and communicate ideas effectively for a variety of purposes. This will help to fully prepare our pupils for the next step of their learning journey. We are determined that every child will learn to write with fluency and automaticity which will enable them to flourish in all aspects of the school curriculum.
The Write Stuff Approach at Woodcote
To enable our children to write effectively and coherently, we teach writing using 'The Write Stuff' approach by Jane Considine. This approach allows children to apply basic skills, vocabulary and grammar knowledge to write effective sentences, which are full of impact and keep the reader interested. ‘The Write Stuff’ follows a method called ‘Sentence Stacking’ which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing.
An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken into 3 learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:
1. Initiate - In this stage, the children are immersed in a rich language discussion and activities to provide a wealth of vocabulary to aid their independent writing.
2. Model - In this stage, grammar and punctuation skills are taught and modelled as an integral part of the writing process. The teacher models their thought process when selecting the most effective sentence structures and vocabulary discussed during the initiate stage.
3. Enable - This learning chunk is the opportunity for pupils to showcase what they can do independently using the skills and vocabulary discussed and modelled in the previous stages.
Deepen the moment: Children are challenged to 'Deepen the Moment' which requires them to draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.
The Write Stuff uses three essential components to bring clarity to the mechanics of teaching writing and support children in becoming great writers. It is introduced through the 'Writing Rainbow', using the three zones of writing:
- IDEAS - The FANTASTICs uses a child friendly acronym to represent the nine idea lenses through which children can craft their ideas.
- TOOLS - The GRAMMARISTICS. The grammar rules of our language system and an accessible way to target weaknesses in pupils grammatical and linguistic structures.
- TECHNIQUES - The BOOMTASTICs. These help children to capture ten ways of adding drama and poetic devices to writing in a vivid visual.
The Write Stuff approach makes sure that all of our children are exposed to high quality texts or videos that stimulate quality responses to reading, high quality writing and purposeful speaking and listening opportunities. Our curriculum ensures that all children have plenty of opportunities to write for different purposes.
KS1:
KS2:
Spellings
To find out about how we teach spellings from EYFS - Year 2, please see Phonics and Early Reading
Children will be tested on their spellings in years 3 - 6 using the Rising Stars scheme. They will bring home spellings each week to practise and be tested on these in the form of dictation exercises ensuring that they know the meaning of all the words in context. Please support your child by practising the spellings at home and encouraging them to place the words in sentences. To make spellings less daunting, practise 2 or 3 a day - there is no need to learn them all at once.
Children are expected to know their common exception words by the end of year 1 and year 2 (known through Sounds-Write as everyday words) year 3, 4, 5 and 6. In year 6, children will have a spelling test in their SATs which will cover rules and common exception words they have been taught throughout school.
Common Exception Words Year 1 and 2
Common Exception Words Year 3 and 4
Common Exception Words Year 5 and 6
Making spellings more challenging
A good way to think of etymology is to use the image of tree roots. As language develops, all the individual roots of a word come together to form a sturdy foundation. The tree is the current form of a language, standing tall thanks to the roots that came before it.
Perhaps they can establish whether the word has Greek or Latin roots, or how has it changed over time or perhaps find out what the word is in other languages?
Supporting my child
For some children and adults, learning patterns of spellings and how to write can be very tricky. Our curriculum is for everyone and we put support in place to help those who find this area of learning difficult. Please speak to your class teacher if you have any concerns or want to know more. Find out more about how we support SEN: SEN (Key Information menu tab)
This website gives some excellent tips to help children and adults with dyslexia, although it has excellent support if you find spellings difficult without having a dyslexic diagnosis.
https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/children/how-can-i-support-my-child/spelling
