Writing at Keresley Grange

Writing at Keresley Grange is centred around a high quality story that captures the children's interest from the outset. The model that is used to teach writing is a personalised approach based around best practice taken from 'The Write Stuff'. The school environment enfolds children in stories, settings and language. There is a focus on drama, oracy and language development, equipping children with fundamental knowledge and skills that will enable them to be successful throughout their lives. 

Writing in EYFS

We are excited to launch Drawing Club in reception from this year! Drawing Club is an approach that immerses children into a world full of imagination. At Keresley Grange, we fully embrace drawing club and can see the joy it brings to our children. It is through drawing club that we open up the magic world of tales and story to children whilst at the same time enriching their language skills, developing their fine motor skills and share a really special time with them. Drawing Club is a fantastic place to start a child’s experience of school ‘Literacy’.

Drawing Club is based upon the 3M principle. These are making conversation, mark making and mathematics. We use a book, traditional tale or an animation as a portal for the week. Children learn new, exciting vocabulary that we revisit each day of the week. We draw characters on a Monday, settings on a Tuesday and we ‘wonder’ on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

We add maths to our drawings by talking about shapes, doubling, halving, addition, subtraction etc… We might be drawing a troll with a spherical shaped head, 2 strong, wiry hairs on his chin and double this amount coming out of each ear. Children observe as the teacher models drawing club each morning and then get the opportunity to complete their own drawings. They are invited to join drawing club and can borrow ideas from the teacher or create their own amazing ideas to share. One of the most exciting parts of Drawing Club is adding secret symbols and codes to our drawings. We always draw a secret symbol that can make anything happen! Sometimes we press them and aliens or unicorns become 3 times bigger, pencils turn into chocolate or hair turns multi-coloured! We then add a password to make the secret symbol work. This can be a mark, letter, digraph (2 letters that make one sound), a word or a sentence. As children make progress and become more confident with their phonics, their passwords develop and move towards phrases and sentences.

Once the children can segment sounds, they begin to label the pictures they see with words and soon they use these words to form sentences. The children are supported to apply their phonic learning to their writing, follow a simple sentence structure and to use basic punctuation. Not only do the children hear stories, they soon become authors themselves. They begin 'Sentence Stacking'; connecting ideas about characters to create stories. By the end of their Reception year, the children are already on their journey as writers.  

Writing in KS1 and KS2

The key focus within our Writing curriculum is on the love of story, enrichment and language. Children are immersed in a key text, revealing plot points one at a time through the 'slow reveal' to maintain the excitement of revealing the story. This story forms the basis of the wider project and curriculum enrichment. We add clarity to the mechanics of the teaching of writing.

Children follow a method called ‘sentence stacking’. Sentence stacking refers to the fact that sentences are grouped together chronologically or organisationally to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can apply immediately to their writing. Children learn to sentence stack, focusing on the style of the author and impact of words and sentences. The planning of these is based on the teacher’s assessment of the children’s learning needs. An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken into three separate chunks: · 

Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence. ·

Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques. ·

Enable section – the children write their sentence following the model and have the opportunity to 'deepen the moment' where they can explore the plot point further and demonstrate their own creative sentences using their previous learning.

 The Three Zones of Writing: The FANTASTICs (Ideas), The GRAMMARISTICs (Tools), and The BOOMTASTICs (Techniques) support their learning, precision and writing.

The FANTASTICs system allows children to identify the nine elements that all text types are comprised of. When pupils are familiar with these nine elements, they are able to ensure that they are incorporated into their writing. The FANTASTICs help children to sharpen their understanding of their own and others’ writing by encouraging them to be observant and reflective.

The 9 GRAMMARISTICs cover national curriculum requirements, capturing the broad spectrum of key grammar knowledge. Discrete gammar lessons are also taught to ensure specific grammar knowledge is taught and revisited. A grammar routeway is used to ensure consistency and progression through school.

The BOOMTASTICs capture the ten powerful ways to add drama and poetic devices to writing. They help children structure their work, teaching them to showcase their writing voice, demonstrate originality and to take risks in a bid to capture the truth of a situation.

Once children have followed their 'central character' through the story, they have the opportunity to plan and write independently using their previous learning to shape their creative stories. Children are encouraged to see writing as a journey; re-drafting and editing are used before writing is published. Writing extends across the curriculum with children being given opportunities to write for a range of different purposes outside of the writing lesson.

Handwriting is taught discretely using LetterJoin. This is practised at least 3x weekly until children are able to join fluently. Children with additional needs have further support to aid fluency in writing.

All English based activities are extended with opportunities for Greater Depth, where children can take writing in their own directions. This includes project sessions, structure of English lessons, writing non-negotiables, assessment and marking.