Writing
The governors, staff and children at Town Field Primary believe that being a confident writer is a crucial part of becoming a confident communicator, both within and beyond school. During writing lessons, children are supported to express their ideas and write for real purposes and audiences, thus enabling them to realise the value in having a voice and something to say. This begins with our youngest children in nursery through to year 6.
Writing is a collaborative process: our pupils have frequent opportunities to build confidence by writing alongside their teachers and peers before progressing to independent writing. Pupils take ownership of developing their writing through revision and editing processes, facilitated through effective teacher and peer assessment and feedback. This structured approach is responsive to pupil need and ensures all pupils are appropriately challenged and able to make progress. Teachers’ assessment of pupils’ writing is rooted in national curriculum objectives and runs alongside secure moderation processes to ensure assessment is rigorous and enables pupils to move forward with their learning.
Pathways to Write
At Town Field, we follow a whole-school mastery approach to writing through the programme Pathways to Write. Pathways to Write is a text-based approach to the writing curriculum which uses high-quality, engaging texts as a stimulus for writing. Writing tasks for our children are meaningful: there is an integrated approach to writing that allows for the application of EGPS through purposeful writing tasks. There is also a high emphasis on development of vocabulary and spoken language which will equip our children with the necessary skills for later life and learning.
The process towards mastery is built up over three stages: gateway, pathway and writeaway skills. This culminates in an extended piece of writing for each unit. As part of the writing sequence, children also have frequent opportunities to edit their writing and to apply their handwriting skills.
At Town Field, we aim for all our children to:
· Be enthusiastic about writing and see themselves as a writer
· Be confident to write for a range of audiences and purposes
· Have something to say and the tools to communicate it
· Be able to write confidently and fluently
· Produce writing outcomes they are proud of and can celebrate within and beyond the school community
· To understand the importance of writing within wider learning and life