Writers at Kippax Ash Tree embark on a creative journey that nurtures the budding talents of our youngest learners, guiding them from their very first steps in F1 through to the culmination of their writing prowess in Year 6.
Early Years
At Kippax Ash Tree, the journey of a writer begins in F1 through an exploration of activities designed to support the development of gross motor control and co-ordination skills. In the nurturing grounds of the EYFS environments, our youngest writers hone their skills through indoor and outdoor provision using a variety of resources. As essential foundations as built, our young writers delve into the world of fine motor skills. Engaging activities like 'Dough Disco' and 'Squiggle while you Wiggle' strengthen their hand and finger muscles, setting the stage for intricate mark-making. The enchanting 'Message Centre' inspired by Greg Bottrill becomes their haven for creating meaningful messages, inspiring them to craft symbols that convey profound meanings.
As our young authors transition to F2, their creative spirit soars higher. They participate in Greg Bottrill's 'Drawing Club,' where they blend words, actions, and descriptive drawings into imaginative stories. Daily Read, Write, Inc. phonics sessions introduce them to the art of grapheme and phoneme correspondence and through experimenting with various media, they master the art of crafting recognisable letter shapes. With growing confidence and letter recognition, our writers take independent strides in labelling, captioning, and composing short sentences, driven by their own child-led projects and enriched by Talk Through Story reading sessions and broader curriculum experiences.
Key Stage One
In Key Stage 1, the journey of our writers continues with a focus on segmenting for spelling and crafting simple sentences, a staple in their daily RWInc. phonics lessons. Rhymes and pictures that correspond to graphemes foster precise letter formation, leading to sentences that are intricately woven into the narrative of banded storybooks. English lessons introduce them to further sentence construction through Jane Considine's acclaimed 'The Write Stuff.' Rooted in two guiding principles—teaching sequences transitioning between experience days and sentence stacking lessons—this approach centres around modelling and the art of ‘deepening’ their writing rather than increasing quantity. Sentence stacking lessons, broken into digestible parts, follow the structural framework of The Writing Rainbow. Here, the emphasis lies on high-quality demonstration writing, where children learn the art of crafting ideas, mastering grammar, and refining writing techniques. Memorable experiences, such as drama opportunities, hands-on encounters with artifacts, trips, and engaging visitors, are seamlessly integrated, adding awe and wonder to their writing journey. The children are expertly guided through the writing process, culminating in independent pieces that proudly display their acquired skills and creativity. Transcription lessons become a crucible for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, seamlessly integrated into the modelling process, ensuring comprehension and fostering autonomy.
.jpg)
Key Stage Two
Throughout Key Stage 2, our writers continue to flourish under the Jane Considine approach. They explore a plethora of text types, each serving a distinct purpose, all drawn from carefully curated high-quality texts. The intricate web of grammar, punctuation, and spelling knowledge is masterfully woven into sentence stacking lessons, supplemented by explicit lessons when needed.
Assessment is an ongoing pillar of our writing curriculum. Verbal feedback, written assessments, and insightful questioning are constant companions on the journey, offering our students a continuous measure of their progress. English assessments extend to the careful moderation of children's writing, both within our school's nurturing environment and within a broader local cluster of schools. These meticulous processes ensure that our dedicated teachers possess a deep understanding of each child's progress, aligning them with age-related expectations and statutory guidelines.
The journey of an Ash Tree Writer is a transformational experience, where each child's unique voice is nurtured, celebrated, and empowered to reach its fullest potential. We invite you to join us on this extraordinary voyage of learning, creativity, and growth. At Kippax Ash Tree, we don't just educate; we inspire lifelong writers and learners.
Handwriting
Kinetic Letters is a unique handwriting programme that believes good, fast and fluent handwriting underpins success in every curriculum area. It is based on a physical programme where children learn handwriting and letter formation through movement and multisensory experiences, developing core body strength.
Learning letters by movement helps writing and concentration and also makes handwriting automatic, freeing up space in the working memory for other learning.
The Kinetic Letters programme uses four main threads:
- Making bodies stronger
- Holding the pencil
- Learning the letters
- Flow and fluency
In Nursery we begin our focus with making bodies stronger. Children take part in daily physical activity sessions where they develop core, shoulder and pelvic girdle strength in preparation for writing. In Reception the daily handwriting sessions focus on letter formation, body strength and pencil grip. In Year 1 daily handwriting lessons continue to develop letter formation and word spacing then moving on to teaching joining in Year 2.
Each letter family is introduced to the children through a story about two monkeys called Bounce and Skip. Bounce is a brave monkey and helps write the tall letters whilst Skip is a scared monkey and helps write the other letters. Children are taught all of the Kinetic Letter families, upper case letter formation and number formation.
Helpful Documents
