Writing at Millbrook

At Millbrook Primary School, we draw on 'Talk for Writing' so that the children can rehearse and learn exemplary models of writing at the beginning of a unit. They will dissect and evaluate these models, analysing the grammatical rules and tools that make the piece of writing a success. The rules for writing are the non-negotiable year group expectations we expect the children to include in every piece of work, whilst the tools are the genre specific grammatical features that the children should include.

The next step in the writing process is the planning stage, where the children formulate their ideas, vocabulary and secure their understanding of the grammatical concepts they will need to use. 

As the writing process continues, the teacher models writing and the children take part in shared writing opportunities with their peers, as well as guided writing opportunities with their teachers, to develop their knowledge and skills in readiness for their independent writing. We use a 'Success Criteria' to help the children demonstrate the skills they've learnt in their writing. 

When the children write independently, they may be expected to use the 'Talk for Writing' strategies of imitation, where they change some elements of an original piece, or innovation, where they are expected to have planned a new piece of writing from scratch based on the model genre. By the end of KS2, we expect that the children will be confident in selecting their own writing genres to present their work based on a given stimulus, whilst keeping their audience in mind. 

Editing within writing is a key skill taught to all pupils and the children use a marking code to support them with this. We also integrate Bob Cox's Opening Doors, and linked reading to immerse the children in high quality vocabulary. 

We use 'Golden Books' at the end of some units to celebrate our writing. The children create double page spreads or beautiful pieces of writing to show off their success and progress.

Handwriting

Handwriting is taught through Martin Harvey's 'Achieving Excellence in Handwriting' scheme. We teach in EYFS and KS1 using blue and red handwriting lines, and transition the children onto regular lines in KS2.