Writing

At Netherton Infant School we aim to promote high standards of literacy and writing is an integral part of our curriculum. We aim to provide all of out children with many exciting opportunities to develop and apply their writing which compliments and builds upon their phonics knowledge and skills.

Our aim is to equip children with the skills needed to be able to orally rehearse, plan, compose, revise and evaluate their writing. We want our children to develop into confident, creative writers who see the value of, and find pleasure in, the writing process. We have high expectations for all pupils within our school and endeavour to ensure that all children make good progress in their writing.

Our curriculum is organised in a progressive way, ensuring the objectives of the EYFS 2021 Framework and National Curriculum are closely followed.  Writing is evident across our curriculum and a wide range of genres are taught throughout the school.  To ensure children develop a love of writing and the skills needed to be an effective writer we:

• immerse children in high-quality texts and encourage each child to think of themselves as authors
• teach writing through a range of exciting stimuli including film clips, artefacts, visitors and meaningful real-life and first-hand experiences which we hope will excite the children and want them to write
• model the writing process daily to support children’s writing and make expectations clear
• ensure children write for a real purpose and reason
• provide children with opportunities to develop a rich vocabulary to bring their own writing to life
• teach Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and Phonics explicitly and apply them to texts
• encourage children to use and apply their phonic knowledge in their writing
• teach the children how to proof-read and check their writing makes sense and then, in Year 2, how to make revisions and additions so they can improve their writing
• use a rigorous, sequential approach to teaching handwriting
• ensure children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention

The Talk for Writing approach is a method of writing we use in school. This approach enables children to imitate orally the language they need for a particular topic, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version.

Talk for Writing, developed by Pie Corbett,  is powerful because it is based on the principles of how people learn. The movement from imitation to innovation to invent is used across all our classes.

The Talk for Writing approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully

Writing in Early Years

In our school we recognise the importance of pre writing skills which must be embedded for children to become successful confident writers. Even though formal writing before reception is not necessary, we provide lots of meaningful opportunities for children to learn about the written word and to support them to understand that symbols carry meaning.

When we are reading books we show the children that print carries meaning, and when we write, we talk about what we are doing, so children understand how they share thoughts, ideas and feelings.

Practitioners model writing, helping to support our children to:

• understand language patterns
• develop their thinking skills
• solve problems
• make sense of their experiences

We listen to children talking and modelling how to write down the words they say helps children to see how sounds become words on paper.

We sharing our children’s early mark-making attempts with parents and carers building children’s confidence and self-esteem.

Handwriting

Developing the skills for effective and fluent handwriting begins in our Early Years.

We understand the importance of the pre writing skills that children need to develop to ensure that they can go on to be confident writers. We provide our children with opportunities to build their physical strength and control in the core, upper body, hands and fingers. Developing core skills and 'muscle isolation' through cross lateral movements, climbing, throwing and catching. Children are encouraged to brushes on the walls outside, mark make with chalks and crayons on a large scale. We provide opportunities for them to develop finger strength with weekly 'Funky Finger' activities. 

In Reception children are encouraged to use a pincer grip and continue to strengthen their fine motor skills and pencil control. They begin to learn how to form their letters correctly with handwriting being taught progressively alongside our Little Wandle phonics sessions.

In Years 1 and 2 children have weekly handwriting sessions following the Morrells handwriting scheme.

Spelling

Children are given spellings in Key Stage 1, these are taken from their weekly Little Wandle phonics sessions.