Writing
‘Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.’
Stephen King
‘Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.’
Willa Cather
‘Writing floats on a sea of talk.’
Mary Myatt
At Ivy Bank, we embrace creativity and have successfully implemented a quality text-based curriculum, which we believe inspires our children to become effective writers. We are convinced that children - or anyone for that matter - can be a writer, when they have a love for reading and can speak and listen well. Through our writing curriculum, it is our vision that every child will become creative writers by being given exciting, inspiring and engaging materials and opportunities that challenge and support them. We want children to become confident, talented, enthusiastic writers, who develop a love for writing and language. They should be able to use writing to communicate with others and express themselves; they should be able to write independently and for a range of purposes. Children will be able to: reflect upon and evaluate their writing; choose and use vocabulary to create style; and convey meaning, as well as use what they read, to enhance what they write. We want children to deepen this knowledge of meaning and purpose within writing, by being acutely aware of the Purpose, Audience and Text Type of their writing.
Read to Write is the scheme our school have embedded across KS1 and KS2. The English curriculum is taught by allowing the children to become immersed in a high-quality text and the writing opportunities are derived from this. Each week, the children are taught to develop an understanding of the texts through reading comprehension, discussions and drama, exploring the key themes, events and plot of the text being studied. They will also identify the PAT – Purpose, Audience and Text Type, which underpins every writing task. Next, the pupils are presented with an exemplar text and given the opportunity to deconstruct it – either modelled, guided, paired or independently – to find the National Curriculum 2014’s explicit grammar and punctuation content, most of which will be the appropriate features for that particular text type. Children are then supported in how to apply the grammatical content taught when identifying features of a high-quality modelled text, before progressing to plan, produce a guided write and then a final, independent written piece, which is fit for a decided purpose and audience.
Read to Write Website - further information can be found here!
Handwriting and Presentation
Ivy Bank encourages the children to have a sense of pride in the presentation of their work across the curriculum. Correct letter formation and handwriting joins are taught using the Penpals scheme, which has been endorsed by the National Handwriting Association. Our school handwriting style encourages breaks in joining, therefore we don’t join ‘g,j,y, x and z’.
Recommended Resources
Use the active-learn website to access grammar and punctuation actvities set for your child by their teacher. The teacher receives information about your child's performance in the activities. The children earn tokens to spend on the fun games and activities on the website.
https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0
Espresso is full of resources to help your child with their writing. www.home.espresso.co.uk. UN= student6994 PW= flyer15
The links below take you to some fantastic sections of the website:
KS1
Letter formation
http://central.espresso.co.uk/espresso/modules/ey_handwriting/index.html
Word Formation -CVC Words
http://central.espresso.co.uk/espresso/modules/ey_word_machine/index.html
KS2
Grammar Resources