Writing
Pupils are taught a range of text types during their primary education. At SBSP we use the CLPE Power of Reading Scheme to provide texts for our writing units, this allows children to explore a range of powerful texts and enable them to write creatively. Grammar knowledge is taught through the main teaching sequence as it is important children learn grammar in context, understanding the impact of grammar in a piece of writing, as well as how to use it creatively.
The SBSP approach to writing is one that tracks the journey of an author. This enables pupils to experience the full writing cycle. At the beginning, pupils look at good examples and model pieces of writing where they identify language and structural features in order to build a toolkit. They then practise the core skills associated with the text type and have the opportunity to apply these to short burst pieces of writing. As a class, pupils then plan and write a text using the knowledge they have learned. They have opportunities for 'slow write' and 'shared write' where the teacher talks through how to think like a writer. Pupils then plan and write their own independent piece, before having the opportunity to proofread, edit and publish this piece. This enables them to become skilled writers.
There is a KS1 and KS2 approach to teaching writing, building upon the work of the EYFS, whereby pupils are shown high quality models, analyse what makes these effective, then practise the key language, grammatical and structural features. They have opportunities for short burst pieces of writing before writing more independently at length. There is a strong focus of audience and purpose.
With the implementation of the writing journey being well established and taught thoroughly in both key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and by the time they are in upper Key Stage 2, most genres of writing are familiar to them and the teaching can focus on creativity, writer’s craft, sustained writing and manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills.