Writing at Junction Farm

Our approach as a school

We acknowledge that writing is one of the most cognitively challenging things we could ask a child to do. Producing a piece of writing is a process of composition. Children must balance creativity with grammatical discipline as they write for purpose. Beyond this, they must be able to adapt their writing style to suit a specific audience and/or achieve a specific effect. It is a huge undertaking!

Writing Components

  • Handwriting
  • Spelling
  • Grammar and punctuation (including ensuring coherence)
  • Compositional features (i.e. strategies for effect, sequencing and cohesion)

At Junction Farm Primary School we have worked together to devise a way of teaching writing. Within this model, writing is taught in two-week units, and the stimulus material reflects whatever the child is studying elsewhere in the curriculum, often considering the importance of local context for each school.

Within the first week of a unit, study centres on pre-writing. This includes analysing existing model texts, exploring genre-specific features, planning, forming vocabulary banks and learning a range of applicable grammatical constructs.

Two-week Writing Unit

Week 1

Week 2

Pre-Writing

Composing

Having secured a grasp of what is needed to write successfully, children then transition to the second week, where the focus shifts to composing. Teachers will model the active and exciting process of writing, and provide rich opportunities for children to start drafting their own pieces based on their learning in the pre-writing week. Children will be explicitly taught to edit through a range of progressive, age-appropriate exercises, before editing their own work in a process of revision (improvement) and proof-reading (accuracy).

Children will have the opportunity to publish and perform their work in a process of redrafting and sharing, encouraging them to take great pride in their accomplishments. During this time, children will also be given opportunities to develop key skills in oracy and prosody as part of a focus on Spoken Language.

Intent

Rationale
As a school, we aim to develop writers that have a love of the art of composition. Children should recognise the process of writing as an important method of communication that shares a purpose with verbal speech while differing in its form. The purpose of this is to develop children who are able to effectively communicate their thoughts, feelings and ideas with a sense of confidence and maturity in a range of different contexts throughout their lives.

Aims for Writing

We aim to develop pupils’ abilities in writing within an integrated framework weaving together the key areas of English: spoken language, reading, writing, grammar, spelling and handwriting. Pupils are given opportunities to interrelate the requirements of English with those of a range of different subjects from across a broad and balanced curriculum. Foundation subjects provide the context and content upon which the rigour of our writing is based, while key literacy skills permeate our teaching of wider subjects.

At Junction Farm Primary School, we strive for all children to be secure in their writing by the end of Key Stage 2. This means that by the age of 11, our children should be able to demonstrate the following skills:

  • Plan, compose and edit writing in an iterative process, using a range of independent strategies to self-monitor, correct and improve.
  • Write coherently and cohesively at length on a range of different topics and themes.
  • Have a passion for vocabulary and a drive to develop the quality of their writing by extending their vocabulary range. This includes developing a secure understanding of word meaning, etymology and morphology.
  • Understand a range of text types and genres and be able to write adaptively to achieve a specific purpose and elicit a specific effect on the reader.
  • Harness the awesome powers of their imagination to write with inventiveness and creativity.
  • Develop a secure and accurate grasp of a wide range of grammatical constructs and punctuation forms to provide discipline to their writing.  
  • Be able to articulate their choices as a writer, evaluating their efforts in terms of the effect on the reader.
  • Develop an authorial voice and style unique to them.

Implementation

In terms of writing, there should be an overarching focus in each of the primary key stages:

  • KS1: Coherence
  • KS2: Cohesion

All children must be absolutely secure as to the meaning of these words.

Coherence

Coherence refers to whether or not a sentence makes grammatical sense. It is important for children to recognise the concept of word order, SVO (subject, verb, object) and basic punctuation standards to ensure that their communication is accurate and clear. Children must recognise a key difference between verbal communication and written communication.

Verbally, the speaker may rely on gestures, body language, facial expressions and a whole host of other non-verbal communication features to support communication. Furthermore, the exchange with the listener is flexible: a speaker can ascertain a listener’s understanding and adapt their communication accordingly.

In written communication, the reader is unknown and the writer cannot rely on non-verbal communication features. The art of writing is based on providing absolute clarity and making no assumptions about the reader’s prior knowledge of the subject. Writing should communicate fully, clearly and accurately and should possess a level of formality that we would not expect in verbal communication. This requires a sense of discipline within our children, as these demands amount to a prioritisation of coherence.

Common issues with coherence:

  • Fragmenting
  • Run-on sentences
  • Absent punctuation

Cohesion

Once children have developed security in writing sentences and texts that make sense, they then progress to a focus on cohesion. This refers to whether a text flows for the reader. Are ideas suitably grouped into paragraphs by theme, and are sentences and paragraphs sequenced fluently to best communicate the central ideas of the writing? Ideas are formulated and presented in a structured and sequential manner to ensure that the composition is mature in its style of communication.

Examples of strategies to foster cohesion

  • Planning compositions in a process of prewriting
  • Use of pronouns to avoid repetitiveness of proper/common nouns
  • Avoid repetition of the same words (unless for deliberate effect)
  • Use subordination and coordination to sequence a narrative (incl. conjunctions, compound/complex sentences, fronted adverbials etc.)
  • Use a range of grammatical constructs within paragraphs to provide breadth and richness
  • Use strategies of clarification (e.g. parenthesis, relative clauses etc.)
  • Use subheadings where appropriate to provide signposting within expository writing

Overview of Writing Unit

The writing process is spread across ten working days, and will link to learning elsewhere in the curriculum. This ensures that the children have a secure grasp of content to drive the rigour of the writing.

On each day of the writing week, children will focus on a specific skill:

Week One
Week Two

Impact

To develop our pupils writing knowledge and skills

  • Children can express opinions, articulate feelings and formulate responses to a range of texts across genres using appropriate technical vocabulary
  • Can present their writing neatly using a cursive, joined style.
  • Children foster an interest in words and develop a growing vocabulary in written form
  • Children develop thought processes through a structured writing programme
  • Children are able to write for pleasure.
  • Effective writers increases career opportunities in later life.

Further Information

Progression Of
Genres
Progression Of
Grammatical Terms
Progression Of
Punctuation