At Paddox Primary School, we aim to nurture a passion for writing; whilst honing the functional skills of transcription and composition. In order to support children to be successful members of society, our curriculum must ensure Paddox pupils are confident and skilled communicators. Furthermore, we believe that the children must have a secure knowledge-base in reading and writing, to facilitate access to the National Curriculum across all subjects. In order to achieve this, our text-based curriculum nurtures a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly, imaginatively and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of purpose and audiences.
At Paddox, we understand that every child’s journey of becoming a successful communicator, is a unique and complex process which can be largely influenced by a range of social and demographic factors. Therefore, we understand that for all of our children to develop a genuine love of language and the written word, they must first be exposed to a range of high-quality literature, alongside real-life and contextual texts and experiences, and thus in doing so, laying the necessary foundations for building rich levels of cultural capital. The underlying ethos of our Writing Curriculum ensures, whatever a child’s starting point, all pupils can share the experience and enjoyment of engaging with the writing process and high-quality texts.
Our Writing curriculum aims to provide many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary; explicitly teaching pupils how to write within specific genres and how to manipulate structural and language features. Writing is taught in a two-week cycle. The first week of lessons allow children to be exposed to the genre of writing they are going to be replicating and then practise these skills, before completing a Big Write the following week. The writing process is taught explicitly; lessons start with unpicking specific genre models, as children identify and analyse language use and structure, to help them understand how to reproduce this in their own writing. The children then will be taught specific context, grammar, vocabulary and sentence structures, to help cultivate their writing skills in order for them to write accurately for purpose and audience. When writing their final piece, children are encouraged to take ownership of their writing; editing, up-levelling, proofreading and sharing with the class. Thus, hopefully setting the children up with life-long, independent writing skills.
Thanks to the explicitly taught, well-structured, scaffolded approach to the teaching and learning of writing at Paddox Primary School, the children will gradually become more proficient writers and communicators over time, and always feel confident with writing for an audience and purpose.
The teaching and learning of writing at Paddox Primary School is constantly adapted and tailored to every class’/child’s needs, and never delivered in isolation. It is through this personalised and responsive approach, that we strive to develop our children into articulate and imaginative communicators who are well-equipped with the basic skills, knowledge and experiences needed to becoming life-long learners in writing. At every opportunity, we ensure that children develop an understanding of how widely and creatively writing is/can be used and its importance in everyday life. We therefore take great pride in that our children become aware of – and can clearly articulate – how their learning of writing is relevant and meaningful with regards to their own wider-life skills and future aspirations; they see the bigger picture!