Authors (Writers) at Queen's Crescent

Being an author (writer)

Lead writer: Mr Scott Carpenter

Intent:

At Queen’s Crescent, we support our children to develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well-equipped with the basic skills they need to become life-long learners. Through our reading spine and writing curriculum, we create a culture where children develop a genuine love of language and the written word.

Carefully chosen authors and books inspire both narrative and non-fiction writing. This is also supplemented by poetry and opportunities for children to write in styles/genres of their choice. Links are made to real life: children consider the purpose of their writing and the intended audience for it.

At Queens Crescent, we want all children to:

• See themselves as real authors
• Write for pleasure
• Take ownership of their writing; editing and up-levelling independently
• Write for a real purpose, with opportunities to publish and share their writing
• Apply their writing skills across all areas of the curriculum

Aims:

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

How do we teach writing and why has this approach been chosen?

At Queen’s Crescent, we use Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing approach to underpin all planning and teaching. Our progressive long term writing plan ensures a broad range of narrative and non-fiction writing units are covered in every year group. These are linked to the reading spine and to our wider curriculum enquiries. The texts that we teach are high quality, encompassing all aspects of culture and diversity, as well as looking at some historical texts and different dialect. Learning sequences are carefully planned to ensure all aspects of writing are covered and all children can be successful. The sequences are engaging and include opportunity for roleplay/drama and writing in role, character development, book talk and the opportunity for children to develop their own ‘writer’s voice’.

The teaching of spelling rules is taught in stand-alone sessions and is embedded within our writing units, as are curriculum words in key stage 2. At Queen’s Crescent the children use cursive handwriting. From year 2 upwards they are expected to begin joining their letters.

Children learn the disciplinary knowledge of being an ‘author’. To be successful author children need to:

• learn and consolidate the grammatical structure of sentences
• manipulate sentences maintaining grammatical structure
• learn how to form letters correctly
• spell words correctly and use a dictionary to find words and definitions quickly and efficiently
• understand the meaning of words and parts of words and how sentences convey meaning
• understand the purpose of writing and who the writing is intended for (audience)
• be exposed to varied authors and text types to understand how authors write, including editing and improving.

Experiential learning:

Author visits, writing competitions, real-life opportunities (e.g. school newspaper), theatre trips  

SEND pupils:

Pupils with SEND may need support in the following ways: scaffolds for text structure, images from texts to sequence, spelling word mats, ergonomic pens, sentence structure cards or jigsaws.

Environment (language-rich)

Modelled and shared writing, golden words (statutory spellings), writing toolkits, boxing up plans, examples of vocabulary linked to the text-type generated with the children.

What our writing lessons involve:

Children’s learning is documented in writers’ books

Writing outcomes:

Our lead writer (Mr Carpenter) monitors writers’ books across the school. He also leads moderation within year groups and across the Pickwick Academy Trust. Teachers use cold tasks at the start of a writing unit to assess pupils’ strengths and areas for development; they adapt their planning accordingly in response to the needs of their class. Teachers use hot tasks to track children’s progress and attainment. Several ‘random writes’ are planned for throughout the year to allow children the opportunity to choose a style/genre to write in. Teachers ensure key writing skills for their curriculum are embedded before children move on.

Data is used to identify where extra support is needed, as well as continuous professional learning requirements for staff. The lead writer works closely with the link governor to evaluate the impact and outcomes of the writing action plan.  

Appendix 1 Queen's Crescent 3 Stage Planning Structure for Writing

QC Writing Policy

Whole School English LTP (Genre Coverage)

Queen's Crescent Reading Spine 2021

 Whole School Writing Curriculum Progression Map