English- Writing

English- Writing

Writing for children can be a window to individuality and self expression.

Intent

At Great Missenden we are passionate about all areas of English: a child’s ability to read, write and express themselves clearly and with a rich and complex vocabulary is priceless and we have adopted the Talk for Writing system to support this aspiration.

Talk for Writing is a system for teaching English which creates strong links between a child’s reading and their writing and that empowers children to create independent pieces of written work through a step by step process. This way of teaching also interweaves our school vision: children first become inspired (windows) by a new topic or genre, then imitate, learn off by heart, an example text which provides a great example of how this type of writing should appear in its finished form. They then innovate parts of this example text, change more and more and adding their own creative flourishes until they are ready, at the end of a unit to independently write and edit their own version of the story or text they were introduced to at the beginning of the teaching sequence (doors and mirrors).

This system could be simplified as a movement through the following stages:

Inspiration, Imitation, Innovation and Independent Application

This approach underpins our teaching of English throughout the school and is adapted to teach all age-groups, but we also teach English skills - reading, writing and oracy- throughout the broader curriculum, allowing children to apply their knowledge in different, creative contexts.