Writing

Subject Leader: Larissa Brown and Alice Nash
Curriculum Team: English
English: Writing
 

The Pinkwell WHY for Writing (The Intent - Vision) 
Writing is a lifelong skill that enables people to communicate and connect with the global world. We want all children to be confident writers who are able to express their thoughts and ideas accurately, effectively and creatively for a wide range of purposes and audiences. We want to develop pupils who have the knowledge and skills to use writing in real life situations for real life purposes.

The Pinkwell WHAT for Writing (The Intent - BIG IDEAS)
●    To make accurate use of Standard English.
●    To write for a variety of purposes and audiences, tailoring the writing as appropriate.
●    To make use of word banks, a dictionary and a thesaurus to support high quality vocabulary choices.
●    To use vocabulary choices that are appropriate to the style of writing, the audience and the achievement of the purpose.
●    To make accurate use of tenses.
●    To use a wide range of punctuation accurately and effectively.
●    To use a variety of sentence types and structures accurately across a text.
●    To use a variety of strategies to build cohesion within a sentence, a paragraph and a whole text.
●    To make effective use of a variety of structural features as appropriate to the text type, purpose and audience.
●    To draw on reading to support the writing of similar text types.
●    To make use of oral rehearsal to develop thoughts and ideas for writing.
●    To plan, draft, edit and improve their own and others’ writing.
●    To make accurate use of phonetic knowledge to spell with increasing accuracy.
●    To spell common high frequency words accurately.
●    To distinguish between and accurately spell homophones.
●    To apply a secure knowledge and root words, prefixes and suffixes and associated means and rules to word build and spell with accuracy. 
●    To write in a consistent, legible cursive style with fluency.

The Pinkwell HOW for Writing (The Implementation)
At Pinkwell from EYFS to Year 6 we use a Talk for Writing approach within the English lessons. Thematically and also wherever possible in terms of audience and purpose, the English writing is linked to PBL. In line with Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing approach, each unit of work starts with a ‘cold’ writing task. This enables the teacher to know what the children can already do and what they need to learn next. Following this, the children undertake the imitation stage using a model text. The children learn the model text, text-map the model text, dissect the model text focusing on specific aspects of it through ‘reading as a reader’ and ‘reading as a writing’ approaches, carry out short burst writing to practise new skills and then box-up the model text to understand the underlying structure of the text type. This enables children to innovate on the model text for their ‘warm’ writing task, before moving away from the model text but replicating the structure in the independent application stage, called their ‘hot’ writing task. 
At Pinkwell children also have lots of opportunities to apply their writing skills gained in the English lessons across the wider curriculum. This enables children to revisit and embed previous learning, to write for varied purposes and audiences and to understand that writing is for life; it is a key means of being an effective communicator. As a school we want every child to be an effective communicator, we see writing as integral to this.

The Pinkwell SO WHAT Writing (The Impact)  
Pinkwell pupils develop into passionate, purposeful writers who use their writing to communicate
and connect effectively with the local, national and global community. Pinkwell pupils can write
independently structuring their work logically and cohesively, using Standard English and making
increasingly rich and judicious vocabulary choices. They structure their sentences in different
ways making effective use of punctuation, paragraphing, tenses and cohesive devices as
appropriate to their age and stage of development. They employ their phonetic awareness and
word consciousness within their writing to support their accurate spelling and work hard to
develop a beautiful cursive handwriting style. In addition to this, older Pinkwell pupils make
highly effective independent use of technology to support and present their writing. At Pinkwell
responsible, avid readers make engaging writers who display a confident authorial voice. At
Pinkwell engaging writers make effective communicators. 

Example Piece: Year 2 non-chronological report (written January 2021)