We aim to open up a range of literary worlds and themes, heightening engagement and creative curiosity through partner talk, class discussion and debate.  This allows them to see themselves represented, and also allows them to explore the lives and experiences of others. Writing feels authentic with opportunities for drama to ‘live’ writing and give scaffolds and motivation for writing.

Writing at RTS is explicitly taught with the teaching of grammar and punctuation being embedded across our writing curriculum. Teachers model the writing process and how to capture ideas using key skills, whilst always inspiring children to use ambitious vocabulary and a growing complexity of sentence structures. Our curriculum is designed so that children revisit objectives over the course of the academic year, building more complexity as they move through the school, towards Year 6 and beyond. We ensure children write daily to practise these skills and we expect children to have high expectations of themselves and to present their work with a cursive joined up handwriting style.

Writing

Our writing curriculum aims to develop the articulate author that exists in each and every one of our pupils. We use Literacy Tree as the backbone of our writing curriculum; its book based ‘Teach Through a Text’ pedagogy ensures children are immersed in quality fiction from a range of authors and genres, steeped in rich vocabulary to broaden and challenge. It places audience and purpose at the core, and we aim to motivate children to write for a range of audiences and purposes using diverse children’s literature by significant authors. We aim to open up a range of literary worlds and themes, heightening engagement and creative curiosity through partner talk, class discussion and debate. This allows them to see themselves represented, and also allows them to explore the lives and experiences of others. Writing feels authentic with opportunities for drama to ‘live’ writing and give scaffolds and motivation for writing.

Writing at RTS is explicitly taught with the teaching of grammar and punctuation being embedded across our writing curriculum. Teachers model the writing process and how to capture ideas using key skills, whilst always inspiring children to use ambitious vocabulary and a growing complexity of sentence structures. Our curriculum is designed so that children revisit objectives over the course of the academic year, building more complexity as they move through the school, towards Year 6 and beyond. We ensure children write daily to practise these skills and we expect children to have high expectations of themselves and to present their work with a cursive joined up handwriting style.

Literacy Tree is the award-winning book-based framework that we use as our platform for delivering an outstanding English curriculum.

How do we support SEND in Writing? 

In order to allow all children to express themselves articulately, our SEN children are supported with a range of strategies aimed at assisting whilst developing independence. Although additional adult time and support is available both within classroom and as part of 1:1 or small group intervention sessions, adaptive teaching principles are fostered in each classroom to enable children to access the curriculum with a growing sense of independence and personal achievement. Some children will need more targeted adult support: this is built into the curriculum with key targets being identified as part of the class provision map.

We use digital technology in the form of Clicker – a child-friendly word processor – which helps children build sentences through word banks to help scaffold and support writing. Targeted children have personal log ins for IDL which they can access both at school and at home. This software is used with children from Year 2 upwards who may be presenting with dyslexic-type tendencies and who may need extra support with phonics, reading and spelling.

Word banks, spelling mats, pre-teaching, sentence stems and scaffolds are all used to help children gather their ideas for writing. We have a range of helpful equipment in each classroom which children can select from such as: pencil grips; special handwriting pens; coloured overlays; word banks and scaffolds and a set of four class laptops. The teacher may choose to use an open dyslexic font and muted screen colours, use voice assisted software, headphones or a visualizer when required. There is also the ability to mirror the class whiteboard onto the class iPad so children can access the teaching materials more personally, allowing for a different pace or revisiting key areas of the lesson.