Writing

Our Time to Be Writers Intent:

At TPA, we aim to create writers with the skills, ability and experiences to be able to write across all areas of the curriculum.  The writing that every child does is linked to their reading of quality texts that are carefully selected to allow children to develop vocabulary and sentence structures that are used by experienced authors.

Our Time to Be Writers Implementation:

As each child progresses through the school, they take on more aspects of the writing process, with the aim that they leave primary school with the skills required to make them confident, independent writers across a range of subjects.

Children are given the opportunity to write in a range of genres, from newspaper reports to narratives.  They are clear about the purpose of their piece of writing as we aim to make these purposes as authentic as we can.  Children know the audience that they are writing for and the feeling that they want to create in their readers, whether that is through informing them, entertaining them or persuading them.  Audiences for a child’s writing range from other classes in school, to parents, to members of parliament - we are continually looking for opportunities for purposeful writing.

Our writing also links to with the rest of our bespoke TPA curriculum.  At TPA, we have developed a Time to Be… curriculum as we strongly believe that children should be learning the skills and knowledge they need for their chosen future career.  We want children to understand that their primary school learning forms the foundation for their future.  As part of our Time to Be … curriculum, we have developed an Experiences Grid that children will be exposed to throughout their time at TPA.  These experiences, not only link to future careers, but also allow children another opportunity for purposeful writing.  This also gives children the chance to learn what it is like to write as Scientists or Geographers etc..

Our Time to Be Writers Impact:

For each finished piece of writing in English lessons, each child will have followed a Learning Journey, that builds skills of reading - using a model that can be ‘unpicked’ and evaluated and vocabulary, grammar and punctuation skills that are taught with links to the model text. This leads towards a completed text that is then edited - for both corrections and changes to structure.

For writing across other areas of the curriculum, children are again writing for a purpose.  They might be writing a recount of a visit they been on, or reporting on a science experiment that they have carried out.  The children should be using the same skills that they learn in their Writing Learning Journeys in these other pieces.