English - Writing

Writing

Here at St Bernadette’s, we aim for our children to be secure in their knowledge and understanding of the different genres of writing and be confident and fluent in their application of them. We want our children to learn that writing enables them to use their imagination and express themselves in different ways. Most importantly, we want them to develop a love of writing; to build on their starting points and have the necessary skills to move on successfully to the next stage of their education.

Through the use of our long term plan/progression document for writing, we are able to ensure that children take part in lessons that are carefully sequenced in order to build on their knowledge, skills and understanding of writing. Learning is regularly revisited through morning work, homework and through our cross-curricular Our World lessons where we give the children plentiful opportunity to write for a real purpose and embed the skills they are learning. Accurate spelling is prioritised through weekly spellings homework and we encourage our children to develop a rich and varied vocabulary through Word of the Week, Magpie Word Books and by encouraging a true love and appreciation of reading a wide variety of books. Children learn more sophisticated ways of editing and improving their work as they pass through the school and we foster high expectations so that they take pride in the presentation and quality of their work. Teachers use formal assessments, writing conferences, daily, in-class observations to inform planning so that the sequence of lessons meet the needs of their class. This assessment also helps to identify children who may be struggling with their learning. These children benefit from differentiated learning, flexible grouping, and when necessary, intervention groups that target understanding of a specific skill. Teachers use modelling regularly to achieve different outcomes: to demonstrate a new skill or genre; to check understanding of specific features; to challenge thinking about a concept to reach a deeper level of understanding.

500 Words Creative Writing Competition

We are over the moon to announce the winners of the 500 Words Creative Writing Competition which took place on World Book Day. We enjoyed reading a wide range of high-quality entries which included mystical, adventurous, spooky, humorous and heart-warming tales! We have winners from KS1, LKS2 and UKS2, as well as a story-telling winner from EYFS who retold the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears brilliantly.

EYFS – Ohemaa from Saplings Lourdes

KS1 – Emilia from Year 2 Turtle Class.

LKS2 – Karon from Year 3 Panda Class

UKS2 – Janelle from Year 6 Comet Class.

A huge well done to all children who took part – we thoroughly enjoyed reading every single entry.