Writing

At Queen’s Manor we endeavour to create a love for literacy.

We want every child to leave school with the skills of an excellent writer who:

• Has the ability to write with fluency and an authorial voice;
• Thinks about the impact they want their writing to have on the reader and knows how they will achieve this;
• Has a sophisticated bank of vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description;
• Can structure and organise their writing to suit the genre they are writing and include a variety of sentence structures;
• Displays excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented, punctuated, spelled correctly and neat;
• Re-reads, edits and improves their writing so every piece of writing they produce is to the best of their ability.

Throughout their time at Queen’s Manor, children develop their skills by exploring a whole range of different genres, with a focus on exploring a range of models of excellence and using these to guide the drafting and editing process. It is essential that that we not only develop a real enjoyment of writing in English lessons, but in all subjects across the curriculum.

During English lessons, teachers authentically model the writing process and thinking aloud to develop pupils’ metacognitive and critical thinking skills. Critical literacy skills are incorporated into the curriculum and links to other curriculum areas reflect important real-world knowledge. To ensure the highest expectations for the progress of all pupils, progression in learning is mapped across units, year groups and key stages. Teachers have conviction that every child has something worthwhile to write about and all children are given the opportunity to develop pleasure for writing by discovering their own unique writing voice.

Spelling

At Queen’s Manor we follow the Read Write Inc. Spelling programme from Years 2 – 6. Direct teaching underpins the programme. Spelling is taught cumulatively and systematically, with deliberate, focused practice. Constant revision and practice are key to children’s success.

Children learn the routines and behaviours necessary for each activity, and practise these until they use them automatically. This allows them to focus on what matters most – learning to spell.

The programme also makes learning to spell enjoyable for children. Aliens from a spelling planet introduce spelling rules and concepts.The programme’s core activities teach:

• alternative spellings of vowels
• alternative spellings of consonants
• homophones
• the impact of adding prefixes and suffixes to root words
• how to spell plural nouns
• ‘silent’ letters
• unusual letter strings
• word families.

It includes all the spelling requirements of the English National Curriculum Years 2 to 6 and revises spelling taught in Year 1.

Handwriting

At Queen’s Manor we also use the whole-school Nelson Handwriting programme to teach handwriting. This programme is designed to help all children develop a confident, legible and personal handwriting style and meet higher curriculum expectations. Children use resources for pattern practice and motor skills and enjoy fun activities in the classroom to bring handwriting to life.