Writing across school
Our school offers pupils a language-rich learning environment, with its foundations built around oracy, which aides and supports children’s understanding and development of language. The majority of writing at Mackie Hill is inspired by the topics that each class studies. Very often, our writing springs from ideas and themes explored when studying class novels, or from texts which relate to current topics, and is in line with the 2014 National Curriculum.
In Key Stage 1, children have opportunities for extended writing in addition to their daily Read, Write Inc session. In Key Stage 2, children have 4 daily writing lessons of 60 minutes, in which they extend their understanding of grammar and punctuation, reading and analysing texts, planning, writing, reviewing, editing, redrafting and presenting.
Children are taught to assess the effectiveness of their own writing from an early age using success criteria; this enables children to strengthen their understanding of expectations and strive to achieve learning objectives and targets. When writing a long piece, they will be given opportunities to edit and improve their work, then to redraft; this encourages children to take pride in their work and to be proud of their writing achievements.
Aims
At Mackie Hill we aim to:
- Nurture positive attitudes towards writing so pupils enjoy writing and do so for a range of purposes and audiences
- Develop pupils’ literacy skills to a level that, as a minimum, adequately prepare them for the next stage of their education
- Use writing skills consistently across the curriculum