Writing

At Bywell Junior School we understand the importance of writing and giving each and every pupil the opportunity to thrive and progress as confident and capable writers. We are absolute in providing children with a rich writing diet, using high quality reading books and text extracts to inspire children to become established writers, which will enable them to gain an important lifelong skill.

We encourage our pupils to be reflective writers, to write, edit and redraft not only their own writing, but also paired and grouped work. Children are encouraged to push their own boundaries with writing; we look to nurture them as individual writers and support all stages of the writing process. The aim is to develop children’s writing independence and endurance throughout the school. We believe that children of all writing abilities have the potential to become confident writers. Writing lessons give children the opportunity to work collaboratively together, through positive partner talk in a calm and peaceful writing environment. Children at Bywell have a compassionate approach to writing; they listen to each other and share ideas in pairs or in small groups, working collaboratively whilst understanding the need to engage in high-quality discussions allowing them to develop their own sense of compassion and understanding.

At Bywell, a large focus is put on understanding the importance of exposing the children to a rich diet of vocabulary, through the use of carefully selected texts and through quality first teaching in all lessons. Displays are used to move children’s learning on and encourage them to experiment with the implementation of vocabulary not only relevant for the child’s age, but also vocabulary that is more advanced than the child’s age. Working wall displays not only capture children’s positive contributions, but also act as a tool for helping children’s writing advance.  Evidence shows that there is a close link between writing and reading and at Bywell we know that our children have an exposure to age-related texts which they can read both at school and at home. Children are given extensive opportunities to apply new vocabulary learnt in every subject.

At Bywell, we have high expectations of both grammar and spelling, not only in English, but throughout every subject that is taught. Children are given the opportunity to apply writing skills in a range of writing activities in these lessons; from sustained pieces to short and precise fact files. Grammar is deeply embedded in all lessons taught throughout the school and non-negotiable basic writing skills are a fundamental requirement in all pieces of writing across the school. Children who find writing more difficult are supported effectively by teaching assistants either 1-1 or in a small group.

• As a school we have now rolled out the Jane Considine approach to writing (The Write Stuff) across all 4 year groups (Year 6 began in September 2023).
• The Write Stuff, created by Jane Considine, is a system that will sharpen the teaching and learning of writing within the classroom. It is research informed and practically applies evidence for improving writing outcomes.
• The school will follow the rainbow streams for writing which include FANTASTICS, BOOMTASTICS and GRAMMARISTICS. These provide guidance for both teachers and pupils with a wealth of ways in which the children can showcase their flare and select a focus for deepen the moment.
• The school will follow the unit lesson plans and sequence of lessons from the Jane Considine Write Stuff.
• Writing units have been specifically chosen to ensure a broad writing coverage of the curriculum.
• Writing units will be slowed down giving children the opportunities to explore vocabulary and grammar elements in more depth during the teaching sequences.
• Children will be exposed to experience lessons, sentence stacking lessons and independent writing lessons which also include planning, writing, editing and redrafting.
• Children will record their work in books on a daily basis.
• Children will be encouraged to use CHOT (chat and jot) when orally discussing ideas within the classroom.
• Teaching sequences will be systematically built, with 3 learning chunks in each lesson. Each chunk will consist of an initiate, model and enable sequence.
• Writing will focus on plot points and positive and negative events.
• Children are encouraged to develop their own writing content and stamina through quality first teaching and the systematic approach of Jane Considine.
• Writing is now being assessed using the Jane Considine assessment which accompanies the ‘The Write Stuff’ writing scheme.
• Children will show endurance in their writing in all types of writing lessons including independent writing sessions.
• Children will have the opportunity to edit their work in a number of ways, including spelling and punctuation, rewriting and reimagining.
• There is also a focus on writing basics that are targeting across all year groups; basic punctuation needs to be accurate for children to work within specific year group expectations.
• We are following the Pen Pals handwriting scheme which is taught across all year groups; pen licenses are awarded by the head teacher for exemplar examples of children’s handwriting.
• The school feedback policy has been reviewed to make marking more precise and effective; daily work is marked using the agreed marking codes and margin marks are used for unaided pieces of writing.
• Writing prompts to be used to support children’s punctuation in English books. If children achieve 5 consecutive days, then the writing prompts are removed. If a child fails to use basic punctuation correctly after this, then the prompts are reintroduced.
• Year 6 teachers and writing lead attend moderation opportunities with peers.
• Inhouse moderation termly across all year groups.

• In the Autumn term, staff are to evaluate the writing units from the previous year and look at which units have been successful and which units may need to be replaced.
• Staff now need to amend and adapt the writing units if they see fit (some writing units are too long and need to be edited to suit the needs of our children).
• Support given to new members of staff following the writing staff meeting in September.
• Working party to be formed to look over the assessment sheets and make adjustments if needed.
• To review all staff understanding of a ‘greater depth’ writer and correlate National Curriculum expectations and those of the Jane Considine approach following attending the training delivered by Jane Considine October 2023

• Teachers have had a term to introduce the GD Deepen The Moment lenses into the daily lessons. Year 3 have exceeded target and are now introducing 2 different DM Challenge lenses daily.
• Staff meeting time was given to writing moderation in year groups to enable staff to compare writing across the year group. Mr Brown worked closely with Year 3, looking at the potential Greater Depth writers. This was a success and the potential of these have been identified in Year 3.
• Mr Brown carried out a book scrutiny in January, looking at the unaided writing pieces across the whole school. There was evidence of sustained writing and the overall standard of writing across the school was good.
• In Year 6, teachers are now modelling good writing ( teacher modelling) including the DM lenses, comparing it to the original teacher model by Jane Considine, then both teacher models are then removed from view to the children; this is to develop the children’s independence when writing the sentence stackers. This now needs to be rolled out into Year 5 to start to begin writing independence ready for Year 6.
• Mr Brown will work with teachers throughout the school after school, focusing on how the DM challenges are being delivered across the school in the different year groups. He will work closely on how teachers are selecting the DM challenges for the sentence stacking lessons and support when needed.
• Mini writing rainbows are being used throughout Year 6 for children to push and challenge their daily writing; the children circle any additional lenses that they have used in that lesson. This is to be rolled out across the whole school to ensure consistency.

• Teachers have been continuing to use the GD ‘Deepen the moment’ lenses in their daily sentence stacking lessons. Year 3 have been progressively introducing more lenses as discussed in the training delivered. These GD lenses have also been used in all other year groups, with particular success in Year 6 where children have been confident in identifying lenses and using more than 3 where appropriate. Miss Shariff has been supporting Year 5 with the planning and delivery of effective writing lenses.
• Mr Brown has had check in meetings with teachers about how the delivery of writing is working in each year group and class. Some teachers have discussed that they may want to change some writing units for the next school year as they feel that they haven’t been 100% successful this time.
• Mr Brown has looked at the IWB resources that are being used in each group to ensure that the delivery of the sentence stacking lessons enable all the children In the class to succeed. There is still some development needed here to ensure consistency throughout the school.
• Informal book looks have shown that the layout of the ‘chotting’ page and ‘sentence stacking’ lessons is consistent throughout all year groups in the school. There was evidence of ‘Basics’ slips used in books throughout the school. There was also evidence of children moving off the slips after having 5 successful consecutive days.
• Staff meeting time has been used for teachers to meet in year groups and look at selecting lenses for possible upcoming writing units.

• End of Year 6 Sat results 2024 :Writing EXS or better:  67.3  %Writing GDS:                       4.1   %SPAG EXS or better:       88.8  %

  SPAG GDS:                          41.8  %

• New staff will need to meet with writing lead for initial training of using the Jane Considine writing scheme and support will need to follow in year group. New staff will also partake in the online training for the Jane Considine writing scheme.
• Writing Rainbows to be used in all classes throughout the school starting in the autumn term (these are the small A5 sheet which will complement the large Writing Rainbow display poster.
• Basics slips need to continue to be used throughout years 3,4 and 5.
• At the beginning of the autumn term, each year group will need to meet to discuss and evaluate the writing units from the last academic term, and then change any units that haven’t quite worked or are not necessarily suitable or relevant for Bywell children.
• Mr Brown will work alongside teachers in all year groups to support lesson delivery and model good practice in the classroom.
• Dedicated staff meeting time consolidate understanding of the Jane Considine writing scheme (planning, delivery and assessment)