Writing

At Cravenwood Primary Academy, our clear and explicit way of delivering writing lessons aims to enable children to be able to write purposefully and to be able to communicate confidently and effectively.  

• Through a primarily text-based approach and links to the wider curriculum when relevant, we ensure we are creating essential experiences for children, beyond their own personal experience, in order to help develop their love of language and the written word.  
• Children are challenged and encouraged to take risks and view mistakes as a positive part of the learning process, whilst being able to carry out effective editing using feedback from the teacher.  
• Most importantly, our children have high expectations of themselves and their writing and take pride in all aspects of their learning and what they produce across the curriculum.   

Our overall aim is for all of our children to feel empowered to think like writers. 

At Cravenwood Primary Academy, we give pupils the maximum opportunities for developing a strong awareness of the reason for writing, audience, features and tone (RAFT) required to write effectively across a range of genres. 

We use the United Learning writing plans as a launch pad for our ideas and follow the below writing sequence:

1 – The Hook 
To get the children interested in the text.  

2 – Reading Focus and RAFT 
Look at different examples of the text type which exemplify all or part of the RAFT. This is where the children will see examples of real-life writing. 

3 - Detail Detectives (How to build a sentence + SPAG focus) 
The purpose of this phase is to generate ideas, practise writing sentences and practise linking sentences. This phase will integrate SPAG work.     

4 - Plan  
Children will write their ideas into a plan to write from.   

5 - Write  
Children write a section or paragraph at a time along with the teacher’s modelling. As children progress through the school, there is more of a workshop environment. The teacher provides models, feedback and guidance but the children write more freely.   

6 - Proof reading and editing  
Proof reading and editing is always a collaborative process and further up the school is also integrated within the writing phase. 

• Through our carefully planned and well-sequenced writing curriculum, pupils will make good progress.  
• By the end of Year Six, they will be able to write effectively for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.  
• Throughout their time at Cravenwood, pupils will acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of the written word by the time they move on to Key Stage 3.  
• The impact of the pupil’s writing lessons will be shown throughout all wider curriculum subjects. 
• Most importantly, pupils will develop a love of writing and be well equipped for the rest of their education in Key Stage 3 and beyond.