Writing
'You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.' Annie Proulx
"Writing is one of the most difficult subjects to get right - we are working harder than ever to think of creative ways to help children to become good, confident writers!" - MV Staff
"Writing has improved greatly over the last few years. It has been a focus and a priority." - MV Governor
"I love that my child wants to come home and write stories!" - MV Parent
"I love my writing lessons" - MV Pupil
"We have to learn new skills such as grammatical terms as a build up to our writing - it's really helpful." - MV Pupil
"I am clever because I can write my name." - MV Pupil
Over the last few years we have worked hard to develop how we teach writing at Morley Victoria and we will continue to look at ways to make writing even better. We want to teach our children to become independent, creative writers who enjoy what they are writing and can write coherently and with good solid foundations of accurate spelling and correctly formed handwriting.
The process of our writing begins in the Foundation Stage, as soon as a child can pick up a pencil and they then begin the journey of developing their skills and ability to confidently write about a variety of experiences. The process helps to empower our children to have the confidence and skills to be able to plan and write both fiction and non-fiction pieces, including poetry. Encouraging children to read their writing aloud also helps to develop their ability to edit and check with the aid of our “Five Finger Checker” and “COPS and ARMS” approaches to this part of the process.
The teaching of writing is always done through our cross-curricular planning to help the children to have the knowledge and understanding about the content of their pieces. Teachers help to build up the process, exposing children to examples, reading texts and showing examples of “What a good one looks like” to encourage independence and demonstrate the skills required to meet the criteria of each stage of the Primary Curriculum that we deliver.
Working alongside our writing process is also a consistent approach to spelling and handwriting which has been implemented to ensure that our children receive a balanced approach to developing expectations of the spelling and handwriting criteria of every stage of the journey. Writing about an event or real life experience, a theme taken from the wider curriculum or familiar book is always a great way to engage our children and encourage them to become independent writers equipped with the skills to enjoy writing. We share and celebrate their successes after every opportunity.
We have recently introduced the “Feedback Five” policy for marking and feedback about the children’s writing. This is really helping the children to become more independent when editing their work and is a process that is improving the delivery and overall effectiveness of the teaching of writing at Morley Victoria.
Our overall aim is to prepare the children for the next stage of their learning journey so they leave each year group with the required knowledge and skills to ensure that they continue to make good progress moving forward.
