Writing and SPAG

​

WRITING

At Hallam Fields, we believe that writing is not only a key skill for life, but also a crucial part of every subject taught in our school. We aim for ALL our children to become expressive and independent writers, who can confidently produce well-structured and engaging pieces across a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry genres. Our children develop a broad range of transferrable skills in shaping writing, sentence structure, expanding vocabulary, using a wide range of punctuation and accurate spelling, which are revisited regularly and at increasing depth throughout their four years with us. We are determined that our children will leave Hallam Fields certain that they are able to communicate effectively through writing and with a genuine enjoyment and pride in being able to do so.

​

Children have four writing lessons every week, each beginning with a starting activity linked to their weekly grammar objective. We begin each writing unit by picking out the key features from an example piece of writing. These features then become our key skills for the following writing lessons and are taught through careful modelling and scaffolding. We focus on two skills each lesson in Years 5 and 6 and one in Years 3 and 4. In our lessons, all teachers model a sentence or paragraph to the class and discuss key features and appropriate choices for vocabulary, before the children then have a go at their own sentences independently. This allows us to ‘hold the hands’ of our children as they write and support them, so that they feel ready to write independently at the end of each unit by drawing on the wide range of writing tools they have been taught to use. Twice each half term, the children plan, write and edit a piece of independent work. This is assessed using the age related Write Stuff Performance of Writing (POW) grids. These independent tasks have a clear balance of fiction and non-fiction and provide the children with an opportunity to independently apply the writing skills that have been taught in their lessons. 

​

SPAG

SPaG at Hallam Fields should aim to support children’s writing, by naming skills and concepts that they will be applying during their writing lessons and increasing their accuracy when spelling. For us, writing and SPaG very much go hand in hand, where one does not make sense and is not contextualised without the other. 

​

Our grammar learning is taught explicitly during daily grammar sessions, that occur before starting their writing lesson. These objectives are laid out clearly for teachers to follow and are ordered in a sequence that builds seamlessly and allows time to focus on trickier concepts. Each concept will be taught for a minimum of one week, with regular recap then ongoing throughout the year. All grammar lessons start with a flashback task, where children will gain the opportunities to increase their fluency and confidence with their grammatical understanding. In years 5 and 6, children will also do a weekly grammar quiz on a Friday to help familiarise themselves with questions that they may receive in their KS2 SATs assessments at the end of year 6. We aim to keep all of our grammar learning quick and pacey, so that children remain engaged and are able to get immediate feedback on their understanding. At the end of each half term, children are assessed using Rising Stars assessments. Teachers will then analyse the data from these assessments to determine which topics will need to be revisited more frequently during the recap tasks.  

 

Spelling is also taught during explicit spelling sessions and are assessed during a weekly spelling test. We follow Jason Wade’s Sounds and Syllables scheme, which uses the phonetical understanding that children developed during the infants phase of their education and makes it applicable for the tricky words that they will come across. This works by encouraging children to break down a word into its syllables, then look at each sound within the syllable to make it bite-sized and manageable. We teach children a specific pattern each week and investigate into how that pattern functions, and whether there are any rules or exceptions. We aim for our children to leave Hallam Fields able to communicate the meaning that they wish to convey, and able to feel confident expressing themselves through written language.  ​

​

You will find below links to our overview of Writing and Grammar and some examples of work.

​