Writing

At Piddle Valley, we strive to help our children develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well-equipped with the basic skills they need to thrive in the future. English learning is key in this. We aim to ensure all of our children develop a genuine love of language and the written word, through a high-quality, text-based approach. 
 
The Talk for Writing Approach
 
At Piddle Valley we teach writing through the Talk for Writing approach. We selected this approach because it is evidence-based and has strong academic research that underpins the process. 
 
Talk for Writing is an engaging teaching framework developed by Pie Corbett, supported by Julia Strong. It is powerful because it is based on the principles of how children learn. It enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version.
 
The Talk for Writing approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully.

The key phases of the Talk for Writing process enables children to imitate orally the language they need for a particular topic, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version. The full Talk for Writing process is outlined here: Talk for Writing
 
We underpin our English work by establishing a core reading spine of quality fiction, poetry and non-fiction that all children experience and draw upon. Imaginative units of work are developed to create a whole-school plan that is adapted each year to ensure coverage of specific story types. Texts are selected from the Pie Corbett Reading Spine or specific texts written by Pie Corbett to support writing development.