“Words are the most inexhaustible source of magic” J.K. Rowling
At Florence we are writers! We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be authors, journalists, copywriters and teachers!
English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others, and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised. National Curriculum (2013)
Bringing Writing Alive at Florence Melly!
We often use the vibrancy of Liverpool as a vehicle to enrich pupils’ time in our school with memorable and unforgettable experiences, trips, lessons and clubs. Here are just a few examples of how we have brought our writing curriculum alive this year:
- Our UKS2 pupils were thrilled to be treated to a reading and writing workshop from published author, Phil Earle. Phil discussed his incredible journey from a reluctant child reader to a published writer. Phil shared that is was when taking on a temporary position in the children’s section of a bookshop and beginning to immerse himself in children’s fiction that he realised he wanted to write for young people and the rest, as they say, is history. Working as a bookseller led to a job in publishing and today, Phil’s time is split between selling books for a publisher and writing his own. The children wholeheartedly engaged in Q & A and creative writing sessions during the visit. Phil left us with these inspirational words, ‘we are surrounded by stories, every day of our lives. All we have to do is keep our eyes and ears open, because even the simplest or most mundane events can spark off a new adventure. An adventure we are compelled to re-tell.’ It is exciting to think that we may have future published authors within our UKS2 classes!
- Pupils were immersed into an inspiring and creative day of writing as they explored ‘Step Inside Your Story’, which allowed them to place themselves at the heart of their own unique and meaningful stories. We teamed up with the British Library and participated in a live-streamed session, in which pupils were given many writing tips and were lucky enough to hear other authors reading their own stories. Pupils were tasked with creating their own concertina styled books and the outcomes were incredible. All of the smiling and proud faces, at the end of the school day, showed us that the day was a great success!
Our Writing Policy
Please take a few minutes to read through our reading policy, created by our Writing Lead, Mrs Matthews. If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of this policy or our approach to writing, please get in touch: c.matthews@fmp.liverpool.sch.uk.
Our Writing Curriculum Rationale
Intent
The root of everything we do at Florence Melly stems from our high expectations and dedication to promote self belief in our pupils. We strive to empower the children, at our school, to truly believe and know: ’if you can dream it, you can do it’. Alongside this, we understand that English is at the heart of everyday life and in order for our pupils to flourish and succeed, we need to provide an English curriculum that teaches them fundamental skills, preparing them for the world around them. At Florence Melly, we are dedicated in providing an English curriculum that is built around our six big dreams, with our core values sitting at the centre of it. In addition to this, we aim to promote a love of writing by teaching fun, interactive and worthwhile lessons through a curriculum that is built on covers essential criteria, ambitious vocabulary and and builds on cumulative end goals. We want our pupils to enjoy putting pen to paper, communicating their ideas and emotions in a purposeful way and our curriculum assists with this, preparing them for life after Florence Melly.
Through the love of reading and class novels, we will encourage our children to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, audiences and purposes. We strive to embed our children with the confidence to write for pleasure, with the ability to carefully choose vocabulary with an awareness of the audience. We want their love for writing to ooze off the page, clearly showing their appreciation for its educational, cultural and/or entertainment values. The ability to write fluently, with interesting detail and word consciousness, is a powerful skill to obtain and the staff at Florence Melly will do everything we can to provide our pupils with the essential tools to make sure they achieve their dreams and be equipped for their life ahead.
Implementation
At Florence Melly, writing is developed through a number of different and effective approaches. Writing is taught and developed in daily phonics/spelling sessions, in writing lessons and through the wider curriculum. We use the scheme ‘Read, Write, Inc.’ to develop phonics and spelling across the school. Within the phonics scheme, fundamental writing skills are taught and developed. These skills are revisited daily.
In writing lessons, writing is implemented through a carefully crafted English sequence and is taught daily. The sequence allows our children to build on and revisit essential skills, whilst also immersing them into carefully selected high quality model texts with purposeful writing opportunities carefully planned for. Model texts have been carefully chosen to create interest and to show the pupils what a good example looks like.
Throughout the sequence, writing is clearly modelled by teaching staff and our pupils are given opportunities to write at length, developing their independence of planning, drafting and editing their own writing. The children will be taught about the features of different genres and non fiction texts. Our staff will teach the different stages of the sequence.
These stages have been chosen in order to cover objectives from the National Curriculum and to assist in embedding our reading and writing milestones. The sequence ensures that there are opportunities to teach and revisit SPaG objectives and a final write will give the children the opportunity to ‘show off’ everything they have learnt.
Throughout the whole curriculum, we systematically teach our children vocabulary to foster a love of language and to develop word consciousness. Vocabulary is planned for each subject which is revisited throughout the year and built on progressively throughout the school. Our teachers use writing as an assessment tool across the wider curriculum looking for knowledge and vocabulary that is secure. The children are provided with word mats, dictionaries, thesauruses and working walls which introduce the children to new and unfamiliar vocabulary. The vocabulary is incorporated and investigated in lessons developing the children’s word consciousness and are encouraged to use it in their own written work. We want children to have the ability to write fluently and to use their knew found vocabulary and knowledge to write in purposeful ways.
Florence Melly is a reading school that uses high-quality texts as the beating heart of everything we do. We develop a genuine love of reading so that our children read widely and often for information and pleasure. With a deeper love of reading comes a deeper love of writing – they both go hand in hand. Across a school year, we organise many whole school enrichments to celebrate events such as World Book Day, Roald Dahl, Eco Day, Science Week etc which promote reading and writing. Days like these are used as stimuli for the children’s writing. Wider curriculum and cultural capital events are taught using writing as the outcome, providing lots of assessment opportunities throughout the year.
Impact
Evidence of impact can be seen in our amazing children’s books, our displays and from a number of learning walks carried out across the year. Whilst carrying out moderation, subjects leads and the SLT have witnessed the English sequence being implemented and our pupils captivated in their learning. Writing stamina is developing across the school (after a turbulent couple of years) and word consciousness is evolving. Fundamental skills have been revisited and taught with rigour.
Our Writing subject specific characteristics
Writing subject specific characteristics, which we expect the children to demonstrate, have been developed and shared with all stakeholders. These characteristics underpin all work in writing and form a focal point for display areas and provide a common subject specific vocabulary for staff and pupils.
At Florence Melly, we are Writers. We have…
- The ability to write fluently and with interesting detail on a number of topics throughout the curriculum.
- A vivid imagination which makes readers engage with and enjoy their writing.
- A highly developed vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description.
- Well-organised and structured writing, which includes a variety of sentence structures.
- Excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented and punctuated, spelled correctly and neat.
- A love of writing and an appreciation of its educational, cultural and entertainment values.
Key Writing Documentation
Please use the links below to access our key documentation.
Writing Vocabulary Progression
Celebrating Writing on Social Media
Recent Writing Initiatives/Key Actions at Florence Melly
At Florence Melly, we implement many initiatives to promote writing. This year, these have included:
- The appointment of a new Writing Lead, with a TLR, to drive forward improvements in this area of school life.
