Writing
At St Joseph’s we aim for ALL our children to become confident, fluent writers who are able to use the wide range of writing tools they have accessed and developed whilst on their writing journey with us.
At St Joseph’s we provide opportunities for the children to write with confidence and see themselves as a writer. We want to inspire our children to be the best writers they can be. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly, accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We follow ‘The Write Stuff’ from Reception through to Year 6. The Write Stuff is the work of the teacher, author and education consultant Jane Considine.
The Write Stuff brings clarity to the mechanics of writing and provides clear systems through which to focus the writer’s attention. The combination of fiction and non-fiction units we have carefully selected to follow provide children throughout their journey with the experience of a wide range of high quality texts and authors. In our lessons teachers follow a repeated pattern of ‘Initiate’, ‘Model’ and ‘Enable’ whereby they use the three zones of writing to provide a consistent whole school systematic approach to writing carefully constructed sentences.
The Fantastics offer 9 lenses with which to structure ideas and target children’s thinking. This supports children in developing variety in their writing by focussing on the vocabulary used, initiating ideas, provoking thoughts and igniting imaginations.
The Grammaristics focus on the importance of accurate grammar where tools are taught and used immediately to help children develop fascination around language so that they can manipulate and carefully structure words into sentences
The Boomtastics focus on the art of writing, using a range of literary devices and techniques to make careful choices, playing with language to add flair to our writing and achieve various intentional impacts on our reader, painting vivid pictures through our word choices.
Acquisition of language is of vital importance to us at St Joseph’s and throughout writing lessons we aim to support children in widening their vocabulary, so they are able to use language that inspires them.
