At Tewkesbury C of E we aim to inspire the children with a love of literature, a passion for writing and the necessary skills to become effective communicators. We believe children produce their best writing when they are given exciting experiences or are writing for a purpose. We achieve these aims through an engaging and varied curriculum in line with the National Curriculum for English.
We have adopted a blended ‘Talk for writing’ approach, used alongside high quality literature, to deliver our writing sessions. This innovative approach to teaching writing was developed by the author and literacy specialist Pie Corbett It is a fun, creative yet also rigorous approach to develop writing and uses high quality model texts to introduce the children to different story/text types which they then learn off by heart and scrutinise with a writer’s critical eye.
Through it’s multi-sensory and interactive teaching it enables children of all ages and abilities to learn to write a wide range of story/text types using various methods including:
listening to and learning texts and stories;
taking part in drama and role-play;
drawing and story mapping;
collecting words and language strategies
building their working knowledge of grammar.
During the Talk for writing process the children learn the underlying structures and the process of planning using story maps. They also learn about the key strategies for creating interesting characters and settings and how to use a range of sentence types to create different effects including suspense or adventure.
Talk for Writing has three key phases which work together to develop knowledge, confidence and independence in writing:
Our Talk for Writing units always begin with a ‘hook’ starter which fires up the creativity and imagination of the children before they immerse themselves in the model text.
During this phase the children learn a model text using actions and story maps. The key to success for the children is that they internalise the text type through repetition and rehearsal. They explore the structure of the narrative and investigate the different characters, settings and events. They also begin to look closely at the language used and the effect this has on the reader. We call this process ‘read as a writer’. The classroom becomes a dynamic, interactive resource filled with word ideas, sentence types and language tools collected by the children to use in their stories later.
During this phase the teacher and the children begin to change aspects of the model
text using their own ideas. They explore the text using different characters, settings or events and new ideas for descriptive language whilst sticking closely to the underlying structure.
It is during this phase that the children work using their toolkits. The toolkits, based on the features and ingredients of the model text, remind children of the different strategies they could use in their stories and helps them to see the progress they are making.
At Tewkesbury C of E we call this stage the ‘big write’.
The children plan and write their own story based on the text type they have been learning. They experiment with the ideas and begin to explore their own style of writing using sentence types from the model text.
The same approach is used to deliver the different non-fiction text types.
Our spelling teaching is based on the National Curriculum requirements for each year group, Grammar is taught through our Talk for Writing (English) lessons, guided reading, spelling and handwriting sessions.
The programmes of study for writing at key stages 1 and 2 are constructed similarly to those for reading:
transcription (spelling and handwriting)
composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing)
It is essential that teaching develops pupils’ competence in these 2 dimensions. In addition, pupils should be taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. These aspects of writing have been incorporated into the programmes of study for composition.
Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words. Effective composition involves articulating and communicating ideas, and then organising them coherently for a reader. This requires clarity, awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Writing also depends on fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy handwriting
SIAMS – Outstanding
