The Write Stuff

To enable our children to write effectively and coherently, we teach writing using 'The Write Stuff' approach by Jane Considine. This approach is used from EYFS to Year 6 and allows children to apply basic skills, vocabulary and grammar knowledge to write effective sentences, which are full of impact and keep the reader interested. 'The Write Stuff' brings clarity to the mechanics of teaching writing. It is introduced though the 'Writing Rainbow', using the three zones of writing:

From 'The Writing Rainbow', symbols are used to support children within their writing journey and to ensure that all children can use them in context as they move through school.

As part of the teaching sequence, teachers plan experience days; sentence stacking lessons and independent writing sequences. Experience days immerse children in experiences linked to their writing and drench them in vocabulary linked to the lenses in 'The Writing Rainbow'. From the experience days, children take part in the sentence stacking lessons. Sentence stacking lessons include effective demonstration writing from the teacher and the writing of three high-quality sentences with focus on different lenses from the rainbow. Children are also given the opportunity to 'Deepen The Moment' and add more to their writing using a lens of their choice. Independent writing sequences give children the opportunity to showcase everything they've learnt in their experience days and sentence stacking lessons.

Over their time at Bishop Creighton Academy, children will write a range of genres focused on high-quality texts. The chosen texts and genres cover a wide range of themes, including cultural, social and physical diversity.  All fiction texts are explored through a central character, where the children put themselves in their position and focus on the highs and lows of story events and discuss the range of emotions from plot point to plot point.

All year groups have a yearly overview, which includes both Fiction and Non-Fiction texts for Writing. The texts chosen have been carefully considered to ensure children have access to a rich and diverse reading diet. The yearly overviews ensure that children encounter a wide range of text types throughout their school career and have the opportunity to build on prior learning within their current year group and year-on-year.