Writing
At Cusgarne School, we teach writing using a variety of strategies to inspire children's work. We use a variety of stimulus, including Literacy Shed, high-quality texts and videos and we combine these with other techniques and ideas. Children use drama and text-interrogation techniques, as well as spending time unpicking the technical features of the text type through WAGGOL and investigating language and structure. With all of these tools and techniques at their disposal, children are able to use and access high-level, quality literacy texts to inspire high quality writing.
Children are encouraged to proofread/ edit and redraft their work, using a range of tools to support them in their work. We use a range of peer, teacher and self-marking where children use structured marking ladders and success criteria to assess their work.
Assessment is both formative and summative, with children being given a combination of written and verbal feedback to inform their improvements and next steps. Teachers will assess children's writing against the objectives of the National Curriculum and use these to inform their planning for each written topic.
All aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum at Cusgarne school and we expect knowledge and skills taught explicitly in English lessons to transfer into other subjects, so improving cross curricular writing standards and consolidating and deepening skills.
Handwriting
We use the Collins Primary Focus Handwriting scheme of work to support the children to progress through the stages of learning a clear, fluent, legible and fast style of joined writing. The programme begins with patterns and movements, which will be necessary to improve hand-eye coordination, fine motor control and individual letter production. Linked to the National Curriculum levels, the programme encourages a precursive and then a cursive style from the early stages of learning.
The programme links with the development of handwriting skills and style to the main patterns and rules of the English Spelling System.
