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How writing progresses across year groups

Now that we’ve finished the school year, we thought you might be interested to see the progress in writing from year to year. Below is an example of writing from each year group. (We’ve chosen a good, typical example, not a flawless one. Also, it’s important to note that teachers should not assess a pupil’s writing skills on just one piece – it’s writing a selection of different pieces over time that matters.)

At the end of Reception, this child is using phonic knowledge: some words are spelt correctly whilst others are phonetically plausible (‘sum tee’ is a plausible attempt at spelling ‘some tea’). The sentence can be read because the spelling is good, but also letters are formed correctly and there are gaps between the words (we often refer to the gaps as ‘finger spaces’). Finally, the sentence as a whole has meaning – it makes sense. Next step here would be to include a full stop – something children might begin in Reception, but should definitely do in Year 1.

​Straight away you can see what progress is made in Year 1! Sentences ​are effectively demarcated with capital letters and full stops, although the last sentence would benefit from a full stop after ‘drum’ (to avoid what we call ‘squashed sentences’ or, more accurately, run-on sentences). The writer makes good use of phonics – many words are correctly spelled, and where they are not (‘dinasor’) the attempt is plausible. There is an awareness of story language (look at the writer’s use of the traditional start and end to a fairy tale), and the writer consistently uses the past tense.

It’s not an expectation for Year 2 children to write in paragraphs, but we find most children are able to do this, especially for non-narrative (non-story) writing such as this letter of complaint. The cohesion of the piece shown here is very good. The sentences make sense and are in the correct tense. Punctuation is accurate: full stops and capital letters are used correctly ​and there are also some exclamation marks and a question mark.
The writer’s vocabulary choice is also very good: he’s made the writing more interesting by using adjectives and has carefully selected other words to match the context and purpose of the text. Most impressive is ​the writer’s editing: although you can’t easily see it here, he’s corrected a range of mistakes using a purple pen. (Whilst that might mean the writing doesn’t initially appear impressive, the process of editing and improving writing is a very important one that we’ve been developing over the year.)

The teacher has used green text here to show aspects of this Year 3 writing that she particularly liked. Sentence openers that tell you how, where or when something happens (‘fronted adverbials’ including Just then, … and On the boat, …) are impressive and dotted throughout the piece. Descriptions using adjectives (to make ‘expanded noun phrases’) are also good – we can see One dark, damp night and a deafening bang, for example. There’s clear progression in punctuation, too: this writing shows increasingly sophisticated punctuation including inverted commas for speech, brackets and ellipsis.

This Year 4 writing might not appear to be the neatest piece in the series, but the focus here was to edit and improve – it’s hard to do that neatly without re-writing the whole piece. This writing is an example of a recount, a piece that re-tells what has happened (whether real or fictional). Unlike the Year 2 piece, the tone is informal; the writer has managed this well. Like the Year 3 piece, there are lots of effective fronted adverbials. There are examples of sophisticated punctuation (including hyphens used here); when writing longer pieces with more skills, it’s sometimes easy to slip up on a basic – capital letters for proper nouns (The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the name of a book and film, so needs capitals). This is a common error, but you can support your child at home – get your child to practise their spellings by writing sentences that use the spelling and include proper nouns.

This is a great story – and a real one, too! Having heard and read about the story of two male penguins trying to hatch a stone, the task for this Year 5 writer was to re-write the story. The teacher has starred two ‘Ps’ for punctuation (a colon and a dash are used effectively and appropriately) and a ‘PV’ for using the passive voice (a common feature in formal, journalistic writing). Look at the complexity of the first sentence, too – more than one fronted adverbial used, and making a good use of commas. These fronted adverbials are used throughout and really give the writing cohesion.

The Year 6s all loved their residential to Robinwood and had no complaints whatsoever. However, to capture a child’s imagination, it can sometimes be good to turn everything upside down and write about the opposite. What we can see here is also the writer becoming someone else – very different to what a younger child would be able to do. The task to write as Mrs Weekes to make the complaint demanded a formal tone. And your task? Think about how else this piece shows progression across the years…

We hope...

…you have a happy and healthy summer holiday.

There’s a lot to get up to in and around Leeds. Breeze is a good place to start looking, and also check out What’s On in Leeds and Leeds List.

The summer holiday is a long one, so keep up with reading. Encourage your child to continue to read often – quarter of an hour, most days will be a great way to keep their reading skills strong and their love of reading alight.

It’s not just about books – reading a comic or magazine, a website, a recipe, First News newspaper are all good ways to keep your child reading. Why not take a trip to one of Leeds’ libraries – a local one, or why not try the Central Library in town for an afternoon trip out?

You might also want to keep your child’s number skills fresh, too. For younger ones, knowing their number bonds is a good start. For older children, knowing their times tables and corresponding division facts is so important.

Taking up these top tips for learning will be a great way for your child to return to school in September hitting the ground running as a confident learner.

Don’t forget our summer competition, too. Whether you go away or not, we want to see some maths done in an unusual place or using unusual things, or a pic that shows somewhere/something ordinary but which shows lots of maths.

Take a photo and send it to moortownoffice@spherefederation.org or print it out and bring to school in the first week back in September – entries must be in by 08.09.17. There will be prizes for great examples of the Extreme Maths. We’re looking forward to seeing your entries!

Whatever you get up to, have a great holiday. See you on Tuesday 05 September.

School Games Mark

At the end of each year, schools are invited to apply for their School Games Mark. The School Games Mark rewards schools for their commitment to and development of competition, school sport and physical education.

We are very proud to announce that our application has been verified and we have been awarded Gold award for the third year running.

In an attempt to engage as many children as possible in physical activity, we track children’s participation over the year.

68 children in KS2 and 52 children in KS1 and Reception have taken part in at least one after-school club since September. This is 57% of the total number of pupils.

81 children (68%) in KS2 have represented the school in a competition or participation event.

Children tell us they enjoy taking part in a variety of activitie:

• ‘In scooter club, I had fun on my scooter.’
• ‘I enjoyed Wake Up Shake Up club because I got to spend time with my friends and DANCE!’
• ‘I liked basketball.  We learnt how to play the game, basketball skills and working as a team.’
• ‘I enjoyed cricket because it helped me with my skills of bowling and batting.’
• ‘I enjoyed the aqua festival.  Everyone took part and nobody was left out.  Everybody tried their best.’
• ‘The Brownlee Triathlon was fun and got people involved who don’t especially like sport but they did it. It wasn’t competitive.’
• ‘I enjoyed the Sportshall athletics competition because there were lots of events to choose from and do.’

Thank you to staff who have accompanied children to these events or run after-school clubs this year. Thank you also to Mrs Russell who provides excellent administration of our clubs and sporting events and competitions.

Thank you as well to all parents/carers who have helped with transport and supported at our events this year. Finally, thank you to all pupils who have tried out a new physical activity either at an after-school club or as part of a competition or participation event and to those children who have represented our school so well this year.

Great leaders at Moortown

Yellow Yorkshire

Thank you for supporting our Yellow Yorkshire day to raise money for one of school charities, Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Our final total raised was £202.31 so thank you for all your donations.

We also had a visit from a representative from Yorkshire Air Ambulance to hear how the money we raise is spent by the charity.

Election of a parent governor - voting now open

We recently wrote to all parents and carers regarding the Parent Governor vacancy, and to seek nominations.  As the number of nominations received exceeds the number of Parent Governor vacancies, it is now necessary to hold a ballot.

There are seven candidates and you may vote for one candidate only.  The ballot can be accessed via https://goo.gl/LUCBGF

The ballot closes at 12 noon on Tuesday 18 July 2017.

The attached letter provides full details of the voting process and the candidates’ statements.

David Roundtree, Head of Federation

School Saving Club

The next School Saving Club paying in date is 13 July 2017 at 3.15-3.45pm.

If you’re unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be deposited to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Miss Hale.

This is the final paying in date for this year and dates for next year will be shared in September.

If your child would like to open account, please ask at the office.

Children's Day 2017

Children’s Day 2017 takes place at Headingley Carnegie Stadium on Sunday 16th July. The gates for the event will open at 10am and close at 4pm; admission is completely free for everyone, as are the activities when inside the ground.

Families attending the event can make a suggested donation of £3 per adult and £1 per child attending on entry; all proceeds will support the work of Leeds Rhinos Foundation and Yorkshire Cricket Foundation.

Let's Ride

Local HSBC guided rides for Leeds are now available to be booked online. There are a variety of rides available at different locations and by searching using a postcode you can then filter the results according to distance, ride level and who they are suitable for.

Making a healthy change

As part of our SEAL theme of Changes, the SEAL statement next week is I can make a healthy change.

During the week, children will be encouraged to make a healthy change.  This could be physically or emotionally and may include:

• being active after school rather than being on an electronic device
• having water with a packed lunch rather than a sugary drink
• having a water bottle at school every day
• taking part in a Sports Leader session at lunchtime
• bringing a piece of fruit for KS2 playtime and Year 3 swimming
• dealing with a problem in a positive way
• going to bed earlier

Another healthy change would be travelling to school in a sustainable way – walking, scooting and biking.

Children will also be completing the annual pupil health questionnaire for this week’s whole school homework and this should be returned to your child’s class teacher by Thursday 13 July.  Views and opinions from the questionnaire will enable us to consider future ‘healthy changes’.

Change4life, whose aim is ‘to motivate and support millions more people to make and sustain changes that will improve their health’, provides lots of ideas.

We look forward to hearing all about your healthy changes.