Writing

At Whitehill Community Academy, we have adopted ‘The Write Stuff’ to bring clarity and consistency to the mechanics of writing and to enable our children to write effectively and coherently. As a school, all children from Year 1 to Year 6 learn to write through the Write Stuff approach. This was developed by teacher and leading English consultant, Jane Considine. It is an engaging, creative and rigorous approach to develop children’s writing. This approach allows children to apply basic skills, vocabulary and grammar knowledge to write impactful sentences which keep the reader interested. The Write Stuff provides a balance of narrative, non-fiction and poetry writing throughout each term.

In this approach to writing, the children explore high-level, rich vocabulary and are taught grammar in context through different writing lenses on the Writing Rainbow. There are three lenses used to support children with their writing:

• Fantastics – ideas for writing
• Grammaristics – tools for writing
• Boomtastics – writing techniques

The Teaching Sequence

Experience Days

As part of the teaching sequence, teachers plan experience days to immerse children in experiences linked to their writing and drench them in inspiring vocabulary.

Sentence Stacking

This part of the unit is heavily scaffolded with lots of teacher input and modelling of vocabulary use, sentence construction and use of grammar. Sentences are stacked together and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing. The teacher guides the children to write each plot point by following a 3-step sequence:

• The initiate section: a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.
  During the initiate section, children are encouraged to share their ideas from stimulating resources, such as pictures, music or drama.
• The model section: the teacher models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.
  During the model section, the teacher prepares children for writing by modelling the ideas, grammar and techniques of writing taken from the writing rainbow.
• The enable section: the children write their sentence, following the teacher’s model.
  In the enable section, pupils write their own sentences applying the ideas and skills discussed.

Independent Write

Following the sentence stacking lessons, children are given the opportunity to show what they have learnt by planning and writing their own independent piece of writing. After they have written their independent piece, their work is marked by the class teacher who identifies different aspects of their written piece to be edited or improved.