The Big Write

The Big Write was introduced in the Junior School in 2017 with the purpose of improving writing standards, improving students’ motivation to write and to give the School the ability to track writing growth.

Through Big Writing,  we focus on four features that can be applied to all genres of writing. These are vocabulary, connectives, openings and punctuation.

Vocabulary
Our work on vocabulary encourages children to search for ambitious and imaginative vocabulary (ambitious means a word not usually used by a child at this age or stage of development). We may refer to these words as WOW words!

• We spot WOW words in all lessons and all subjects. We may ‘steal’ words from texts, ask children which word they would steal and why.
• WOW word walls are on display in classrooms. Children can copy WOW words onto post-its and add them to the wall. Children can then pinch these words and use them in their own work. If your child spots a WOW word at home, please encourage them to bring it to school to be displayed.
• WOW words are like batteries – once you use them you drain the power. WOW words should only be used once in a piece of writing.

Look out for the articles in the upcoming newsletters to hear more about the other features – Connectives, Openers and Punctuation.

Mrs Ceri Slinger
Head of Junior Years – Learning and Teaching