Writing at Gonerby Hill Foot

IN EYFS there are daily opportunities to write as part of the continuous provision. The children’s interests as well as curriculum topics are used as a stimulus.

The daily literacy lesson is built around a model, practise and apply approach. The teacher will model and the children will have an opportunities to practise through  mark making as well as applying their taught phonetic learning.

Year 1 to 6

At Gonerby Hill Foot, we have adopted "The Write Stuff" by Jane Considine to bring clarity to the mechanics of writing.  This method allows pupils to improve their oracy and widen their vocabulary in every lesson, whilst deepening their understanding of writerly choices.

All our writing is taught through the ‘writing rainbow’ which provides a lens for the writer to focus through in order to ensure all writing is effective and engaging for the reader, whilst meeting the intended purpose. 

"The Write Stuff" follows a method called "Sentence Stacking" which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing.  Throughout writing lessons, children continually re-visit and apply their known writing skills. Each individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken in to 3 learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:

1. Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.

1. Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.

1. Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.

Children are challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’ which requires them to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.

Following the completion of a ‘Sentence Stacking’ sequence, pupils then plan and write independent texts where they are able to show the writing skills they have been developing.

Grammar – Knowledge organisers 1 – 6 coverage

In Year’s 3 - 6 one session is taught discretely and then the rest are integral to the teaching of writing

In Year 1 and 2, grammar is taught twice a week and writing twice a week

Handwriting

We use the Letter Join programme.

Year 1 and 2 have daily handwriting and in Year 3 and 4 they are taught twice a week.

Spelling

Once the children have met the required standards for little Wandle in Year 2, they will move on to the spelling programme, which is closely linked to phonics.

The programme is based around

• Phonemes and accompanying graphemes
• an analysis of the rules and spelling knowledge as per the NC

This is mapped out on an excel sheet and then broken down into a long-term plan for each phase.

This phoneme-centred approach means that the children are overlearning many of the words suggested by the NC.

We teach spelling for 15 minutes a day, five days a week. ‘Setting’ the spellings on a Monday and ‘testing’ them on the Friday; however, year 2 test on a Monday. This removes the accountability from parents to practise them at home as all the necessary practice is done at school. Of course, parents can consolidate this if they wish.