Eastgate Academy Writing Curriculum
Jackie Rutter
At Eastgate Academy we believe that writing is the ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings. It touches all areas of the curriculum and, if you do it well, you can change the world.
“You can make anything by writing.” - C.S. Lewis
From their first days at school, it is important that children understand that writing is a means of expression and a communication tool. We recognise the foundations for teaching the English National Curriculum which begins in Early Years with the development of a high-quality programme planned for Communication, Language and Literacy.
Our writing process begins in EYFS with exploring mark making and early self-expression. It then develops, through our phonetic programme ‘Sounds Write’, into discovering the wonderful world of word building.
Good writing is always rooted in reading. Confident writers read often and experience high quality texts across a range of genres which reflect a range of writing styles. From EYFS to Y6 our writing programme is delivered through ‘The Write Stuff’. These carefully chosen texts are rich in vocabulary and enable children to comprehend beyond their own reading fluency level. They provide a language model and structure from which children can learn how writing works and the effect it can have on a reader. Our children particularly enjoy exploring quality texts; we believe this sparks their imagination and inspires them to write. Above all, they enjoy them!
Our writing process carefully models the planning, drafting and editing process in writing. A key feature of our writing programme is that the children are guided to write quality sentences which carefully embed their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. These sentences are then used to scaffold high quality independent writing.
Children are supported in their writing development through a carefully planned programme of spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG). We recognise that children best learn these lessons when they are relevant to their writing purpose. Our spelling programme ‘No-Nonsense Spelling’ also carefully develops spelling progression from Y2 to Y6.
We believe that developing a neat, cursive handwriting style is important. Despite living in a digital age, good penmanship is an important skill which has many cognitive benefits. Handwriting reinforces our reading and language processing skills. Writing by hand allows time to slow down the thought process, enabling the writer to think about the words, how they are spelt and the structure of the writing; all making the writer more adept at the language they are using.
Handwriting can also improve our memory. Whilst it has been argued that typing notes at the time may allow us to focus more on what we are actually listening to, research has found that handwriting creates unique pathways in the brain, causing those who write their notes by hand to remember the content more than those who type them.
Please see attachment for our Handwriting Procedure.