Writing at Mount Charles
At Mount Charles, we have developed our own approach to the teaching of writing following the recent OFSTED subject review and current research. Working closely with the Trust Lead and following guidance from county moderators and the EEF, as well as OFSTED training with Kirsty Godfrey HMI, we have created an approach to writing which ensures that pupils develop confidence in transcription and fluency across a range of writing outcomes, audiences and purposes. We use the Place Value of Grammar and Punctuation approach at the start of every year to ensure that pupils have a firm understanding of sentence structure, grammar and tense agreement in line with National Curriculum expectations before applying this in scaffolded and independent writing tasks across the year. To supplement writing and writing skills, we following the Spelling Shed curriculum for spelling and, within writing lessons, explicit grammar writing is included.
We use ‘Write Dance’ in our nursery and early years provision to develop mark making skills and ensure that children are ready to write. During early writing, pupils then learn phonic skills through the Read, Write Inc. scheme of work. These are applied and reinforced through dictation activities, planned vocabulary work, oral rehearsal and the ‘Drawing Club’ for creative writing opportunities. We have developed a progressive and planned approach to early writing, which reflects the recent OFSTED subject review’s suggestion of what high quality English in the early years and KS1 should look like. In Year 1, our provision focuses on dictation, transcription, vocabulary and accurate sentence construction before combining these skills and progressing pupils onto more cognitively demanding writing tasks. From the early years and throughout the school, transcription remains a focus with daily dictations taking place in all year groups.
We are passionate about writing at Mount Charles and regularly join in with Trust writing days, shared writing experiences, author visits and more to inspire our pupils to become the writers of the future.