At Uplands, the writing curriculum is structured to allow children to become independent, fluent writers, communicating effectively across a range of genres and text types. The writing curriculum follows a novel-based approach using high-quality books, allowing the children to use each text as a hook for writing, so writing outcomes link to the characters, themes, context and so on. By undertaking this approach, children will naturally pick up different sentence structures, be exposed to high quality language, idioms, learn the difference between formal and informal language, and it develops reading fluency and comprehension skills. See ‘Curriculum Planning 2022-2023’ under the ‘Curriculum’ tab on the school’s website for a list of the book being studied in each year group.
The writing lesson sequence at Uplands is as follows:
Spelling:
No Nonsense Spelling:
For teaching spellings, we use the No Nonsense Spelling Scheme. It goes through 3 phases of teaching spelling: ‘Teach, Practise, Apply’ and teaches the children fun and artistic ways to remember spelling patterns. It is taught 3 x a week and words and rules are applied within the children’s writing. As well as teaching new rules, the scheme revises prior learning as well as teaching and applying the National Curriculum statutory spellings for years 3&4 and 5&6. See link for further details: No Nonsense Spelling (Paperback) | Raintree
Spelling Shed:
This website encourages the children to learn their National Curriculum statutory spellings via a wealth of interactive games. Each child has a login. Stages relate to years so Stage 3 and 4 relate to years 3 and 4. Spelling words from the weeks’ No Nonsense Spelling lessons are added as an assignment to Spelling Shed so children can practice these interactively too. Links to this can be found on the Home Learning tab on the school’s website.
Parental feedback from Open Classroom 24.03.2023
It was really good, we enjoyed it and got some ideas to do with the children about spelling.
The teacher is amazing. The children are taught in a very easy and simple way which they can always remember. It’s like fun and learning together.
It was fantastic in the classroom. Thank you.
I really appreciate the way of teaching and discussing vocabulary with the children.
I really enjoyed this class, you teach them really well.
I really enjoyed the spelling session today, I gained an insight on how my child learns spelling and I can take this away with me and teach my children this at home Mrs Mamodbai is amazing!
So far I am glad to join the lesson, I enjoyed the teaching with several examples in illustration. I think it could improve if possibly you demonstrated things for instance, breaking chalk for fragile.
The lesson was very enjoyable, it was good to see all the children interacting well.
I have enjoyed the spelling session. I enjoyed the group interaction and then small exercises for the individual child to do. I enjoyed the layout.
Very effective teaching, keep up the good work.
I liked the sharing partner work in the spelling lesson and the amount of discussion.
Throughout the lesson, everything was clearly explained in more than one way. The kids can clearly understand the topic.
I was made to feel comfortable, the session was highly informative and enjoyable.
I liked Its Only Words.
I had a wonderful time and hope there will be more sessions with different subjects.
Interventions:
B-Squared – This is for children who need additional support. It is a scheme whereby children’s individual needs are met via a series of tasks and activities designed to enhance their learning quickly via repetition until they are secure.
Colourful Semantics – this is a scheme to help support children to develop grammatically correct sentences. It progresses in stages developing from 2 words up to 5+. Each part of the sentence is colour-coded to help them remember certain parts of the sentence.
Maysarah 3 Elm
Ali 3 Fir
Year 5 children practising their spellings outdoors
4 Hazel
4 Cherry
Click the link below to read a wonderful poem, full of imagery and personification, written by Mayada in Year 5.
Year 3 Mahdiya
Year 5 Anas
Year 6 Nadia
This week, 12 children from years 3 and 4, participated in a writing workshop led by Jo from CLS (Creative Learning Services). The children were very excited as they got to explore some fascinating objects, to help unlock their imagination. They came up with some amazing ideas as to where these objects (eggs with unusual contents inside) came from and reasons why they were here. Some children said they were brought by aliens via a portal. Others said one of the objects was a futuristic communication device. The children then wrote a short paragraph linking all these ideas together.
Here are some responses from the children at the end of the session:
Year 4 Sa’ad
Issa 5 Maple He has been trying really hard to join his letters.
Musa 4 Cherry
Zainab 3 Oak