Writing at Wirksworth Junior School

"If there's a book that you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." Toni Morrison 

Curriculum Intent

At Wirksworth Junior School, our writing curriculum aims to develop pupils’ understanding of and confidence in using writing key skills, enabling them to write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects.

Our school motto is Creative. Caring. Curious. We make every moment count.

Through analysis and discussion of high-quality model texts, children will learn how to ‘read as writers’ and ‘write as readers’, demonstrating their curiosity about writing and enthusiasm for discovering rich, ambitious vocabulary. Our children will reflect on and strive to improve their writing throughout the drafting, editing and publishing process. Most importantly, we aim to promote a love of writing using creative, engaging ‘hooks’ and meaningful contexts that give purpose to what our pupils are writing. As a result, this will encourage them to develop empathy, take creative risks, care about and take pride in their writing.

Talk for Writing

Throughout Wirksworth Junior School, we use the ‘Talk for Writing’ method of teaching English (Pie Corbett).

This is carried out in three stages: 

IMITATION, INNOVATION, INDEPENDENT APPLICATION (or INVENTION).

During imitation, children explore a model text in detail: identifying its underlying patterns and structure: analysing the text as a reader and as a writer; and creating a ‘Writer’s Toolkit’. As part of the innovation stage, children adapt the model text, practising the skills and techniques they spotted and discussed during the first stage. In the last stage, pupils apply the skills they have learned throughout the unit, by writing an independent ‘invention’. The focus is on producing engaging, high-quality pieces of extended writing for a range of audiences and purposes.

You can find our long-term plans for writing below.

Rainbow Grammar

To improve our knowledge and understanding of sentence grammar, we teach writing and applying clause/sentence types using Rainbow Grammar. Please see the below document for an overview of this from Jason Wade. 

Supporting your child with writing at home - useful links