English: Writing
English: Writing
At Morningside, we aim to give our children a writing curriculum which enables them to become confident, creative and independent writers who are well able to articulate their own ideas. We support our children to develop transferable skills which they can use across the wider curriculum and throughout their lives. We use educational visits, high quality literature, film, art and music as stimuli for writing which links learning to real life experience and provides a contextualised, meaningful curriculum. Morningside writers leave with a strong independent writer’s voice and the technical skills necessary to communicate clearly in the modern world.
‘Writing is the painting of the voice.’
Voltaire
Curriculum
In Key Stages 1 and 2, children follow the national curriculum through a genre-mapped scheme devised by the school. It is text, image and experience based and all units are linked to the current topic curriculum. This gives children a broad base of knowledge, facts, vocabulary, real life experience and a context to base their writing on. Grammar is mapped by genre and year group, based on the new National Curriculum expectations. Children revisit these genres across the year and their school-life in order to deepen their mastery. In Key Stage 1, children focus on a more narrow range of genres heavily based on familiar stories, experiences and knowledge so that they can concentrate more fully on developing the craft of writing. During Key Stage 2, children broaden their experience of different genres and have the opportunity to develop their writing skills across a range of subjects.
Within each style of writing, children follow a similar path:
- immersion; discussing and investigating the features of the genre and ideas for writing
- organising and planning their own writing
- writing a first draft
- editing and improving with support from their teacher and peers
- reflecting on their improvement comments and finally redrafting their work.
An overview of the school’s extended writing curriculum can be found here:
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar
Spelling, punctuation and grammar are embedded within the writing curriculum so that children learn skills and use them in context. However, spelling is also taught explicitly in each year group. In Key Stage 1, spelling is a focus of Phonics teaching, which is taught using the Read Write Inc materials. In Key Stage 2, children follow the Read Write Inc Spelling programme.
To see how you can help your child, click on the links below to seeing the spelling, punctuation and grammar fundamentals for each year group:
- Year 1 – Fundamentals
- Year 2 – Fundamentals
- Year 3 – Fundamentals
- Year 4 – Fundamentals
- Year 5 – Fundamentals
- Year 6 – Fundamentals
Handwriting
We teach children to use a continuous cursive style of handwriting. They start with individual letter formation and correct pencil grip in EYFS. Children begin to join when their letter formation is secure; usually, from the end of Year 1. Children are expected to produce neat, joined, legible handwriting at all times.