English Workshop

1. English Workshop Big Writing – Year five

2. English in Year five

3. English in Y5 • The children also have key words or their own spellings with which they use the look, cover write, check method every morning. They have five for the week and are then tested to see if they have been retained. • The lessons teach the children key skills and features of text types which then assist them with composing their extended piece of writing at the end of the week.

4. What is Big Writing? There are different aspects to the process. • In English lessons, four generic skills are taught and practised: V – vocabulary/ wow words which can include a variety of word classes C – connectives and conjunctions O – openers P – punctuation • Writing sessions at the end of the week in English. 35 minutes – consolidating VCOP relevant to text type or style of writing. 10 minutes reinforcing features of text type & planning time. 45-50 mins writing & children stopped every ten minutes & asked to re read their writing looking at one feature.

5. Teaching sequences in English • Shared reading and analysis • Sentence and word level teaching • Shared writing – teacher demonstration, teacher scribing, supported composition • Guided writing • Independent writing

6. An example of planning sequence • 1. To develop an active attitude towards reading: seeking answers, anticipating events, empathising with characters. • 2. To investigate how characters are presented, referring to the text; through dialogue, action and description. • 3. To identify key features of a narrative text, including vocabulary choices and varied sentence structures. • 4. To investigate how language is used in this text type. • 5. To revise how to vary punctuation used accurately. • 4 To plan and draft a new scene for the narrative.

7. How we assess their writing • We assess pieces of writing throughout the year against the expectations for that year group. • This is shared with the children and is recorded in their books. • These expectations are also used for the children to take their targets from. • This list was sent out with targets at the beginning of the year.

8. Success Criteria • This is what we use during Big Writing to focus the children and is what we look for when marking their work. These are normally the key skills that they have been taught during the week. An example from a recent week’s lesson is: • To organise work in paragraphs –with an opening paragraph which states the facts i.e., when what who. • To use formal language. • To include an interview with the correct rules for speech marks. • The final success criterion is the children’s personal target from their previous piece of big writing.

9. After Big Writing • Peer/self assess against success criteria. • Read through their work to check for spelling, punctuation, check it makes sense. • Review their own targets. • Share successes.

10. Spelling • During big writing, we encourage the children to use their spelling logs and prompts around the classroom to encourage accurate spelling. • However, we do not want them to worry about spelling ambitious words if this will prevent them from writing freely so we tell the children to just have a go. • In our marking of their writing, we will only pick out up to five mis-spelt words for the children to look at, which will have the correct spelling if it is beyond their spelling ability.

11. Grammar and punctuation – Year 3 • preposition, conjunction • word family, prefix • clause, subordinate clause • direct speech • consonant, consonant lettervowel, vowelletter • inverted commas (or ‘speech marks’)

12. Grammar and punctuation - Year 4 • determiner – this goes in front of a noun and its adjectives to help to tell you which person or thing the sentence is about, or how much or how many of them there are (e.g. a, an, the, two, many) • pronoun - can be used instead of a noun. Using a pronoun avoids repeating the noun again and again. • possessive pronoun - tell you who something belongs to e.g. his, her, their. • adverbial - a word or phrase that gives more information about a verb or clause. An adverbial can be an adverb, a phrase or a subordinate clause.

13. Grammar and punctuation - Year 5 • modal verb - They can express meanings such as certainty, ability, or obligation (e.g. would, should can, might) • relative pronoun – who, whom, which, whoever, whomever, whichever, and that. • relative clause - a special type of clause which modifies a noun, often using a relative pronoun such as who or that to refer back to the noun, or modifies a clause. • parenthesis - Brackets, dashes or commas are used to indicate parenthesis which separates relevant information or comment from the rest of the text.

14. Grammar and punctuation - Year 5 (cont.) • bracket - to separate a word or phrase that has been added to a sentence as an explanation or afterthought. If you take out the word or phrase between the brackets, the sentence still makes sense. • dash - can introduce further information and can be used instead of a colon, a comma or, occasionally, brackets. • fronted adverbial - an adverbial that appears at the beginning of a sentence. There is usually a comma after a fronted adverbial. • cohesion - refers to the ways in which the writer makes the different parts of a text link together byusing cohesive devices such as: use determiners and pronouns to link back to other words; use a conjunction to link words or groups of words within a sentence; use adverbs and adverbials to link between sentences; and grouping sentences together in paragraphs and making links between paragraphs.

15. Grammar and punctuation - Year 6 • subject, object • active, passive • synonym, antonym • ellipsis • hyphen • colon • semi-colon • bullet points

16. How can you help at home? • Encourage children to read their work through. • Encourage children to use VCOP. • Encourage children to read as writers. • Talk about how they could improve using more interesting vocabulary. • Use advanced vocabulary and explain meaning and word class – send them into school as wow words. • Talk about using different openers and conjunctions. • Help your child talk through their ideas for their writing during the build up to it. • Use of punctuation and other of features – look at whilst reading. • Most importantly encourage and praise children for their own efforts.

17. Thank you • Thank you for your ongoing support and we hope you enjoy the lessons with your children • Miss Cook’s class will be in Columbus Hall • Mr Smith’s class will be in here. • Please can you complete the evaluation forms both before and at the end of the workshops and hand them back in to a member of staff.