Vision
At Blackwater, we believe that firm foundations in reading and writing are key to educational success.
Our aim is to fill the days with opportunities for the children to be creative and inspired to write. We never put a ceiling on children's learning and have high expectations of them all as writers.
Our writing curriculum is closely tied to our learning across the curriculum, and usually written tasks are inspired by the class text, which children are immersed in through daily reading sessions. Our writing curriculum was created in partnership with Grammarsaurus and therefore is bespoke to our school.
We approach the teaching of writing with the understanding that it is complex and involves many aspects. As a result we teach handwriting, vocabulary and spelling outside the writing lesson. Grammar and punctuation are taught through shared writing and linked to the current writing unit.
The writing process at Blackwater is broken into four key stages. Central to this process is exposing the children to high-quality written texts on which to base their own written work. These texts are chosen to ensure that a wide variety of genres and styles are covered. Central to this process is the development of children’s vocabulary and their application of ambitious language into their own written work.
The four stages of writing are outlined below. These are displayed in the classrooms on writing working walls and communicated to the children at each stage so they are aware of the requirements of each lesson.
In key stage one, these stages are condensed into an individual daily lesson structure that will involve an element of text analysis, before moving on to shared writing and eventually an independent writing task.
