Standard Operating Procedure for English
1.
2.
All English units of work last 2 weeks, taking the structure (below).
Poetry is the exception – taught in one-week units, structured at class teacher’s
discretion.
Therefore, a typical two-week English unit contains 4 distinct types of lesson – all have
SOPs which must be followed (on the following pages)
Monday
WEEK 1:
Purpose
and effect
Getting to know you.
•
Understanding the
purpose of the genre.
•
Gaining subject
knowledge.
•
Analyse exemplars
•
Create writing toolkit
display
Week 2:
Technical
accuracy
S&L and drama
•
Developing S&L and
drama skills.
•
Understanding the
effect of the genre.
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Dictogloss
• Improving the
effect of the
writing
• Awareness of
planning
skeleton
Dictogloss
•
Improving the
effect of the
writing
Dictogloss
•
Improving the
effect of the
writing
Big Writing
•
Using and
applying
writing skills
•
Plan using
planning
skeleton
Dictogloss
• For technical
accuracy
• Awareness of
planning skeleton
Dictogloss
•
For technical
accuracy
•
Awareness of
planning
skeleton
Dictogloss
•
For technical
accuracy
•
Awareness of
planning
skeleton
Big Writing
•
Using and
applying
writing skills
Standard Operating Procedure for
English Day 1 ‘Getting to know you’
1.
~11.05am
Part 1: Analysing Writing Grid
2.
3.
4.
~11.20 am
Starter: Immediate engagement.
Misconception or SPaG linked to key issues in class, children’s gaps in learning, the
current writing genre and criteria from writing passports.
Exemplar could be given and children could be asked to guess the genre, justifying their
reasons.
Learning Intention & explaining the Analysing Writing Grid: Give the context of the
lesson by explaining the lesson’s learning intention and what the theme / genre is for
the next 2 weeks. Q&A about the genre.
Share Success Criteria: children discuss and clarifying.
These should be taken (or adapted) from writing passports and divided into two
sections: a) analysing and b) writing, since children will be involved in two distinctly
different processes
Teacher Model how to use language from the exemplar to fill out the Analysing Writing
Grid.
Read part of the exemplar with the class prior to this.
Explain that the Analysing Writing Grid has two parts:
1. Features of the genre (linked to purpose and audience)
2. Language features (linked to age appropriate milestones in Writing Passport)
Children complete Analysing Writing Grid with talk partners. High levels of collaboration
and partner talk.
Extension - Add further success criteria to Analysing Writing Grid: text mark other
features that are of interest.
Mini-plenaries to model how to fill out the Analysing Writing Grid throughout this part of
the lesson
5.
Part 2: Paragraph writing
6.
~11.40am
Part 3:
Display
7.
~ 12.00pm
Differentiation options:
• Shorter extracts with less demanding reading for LA readers.
• Adapted Analysing Writing Grid with less criteria and relevant to lower Milestones.
• Modified success criteria to stick in
Focus group: During the Analysing Writing Grid work (above) the class teacher will form
a targeted group of 3-6 children, grouped by common gaps in writing. Teacher model
children’s suggestions. Refer to success criteria throughout.
Paragraph Writing
• Teacher model paragraph writing. Focus on what has been learned purpose
and audience.
• Children write a paragraph to explain what they know about the genre using black
pen and best handwriting.
• Provide sentence starters to help scaffold the writing
Examples
• Persuasive writing can be found in…
• To be a success, persuasive writing uses……
• The purpose of mystery and suspense writing is… (mention ‘the reader’)
• Good suspense writing uses… (give examples from success criteria)
• Consolidate by ‘final checking: Punctuation/ Personal challenge- children have
time to go back through their work and confirm that punctuation is clear and
concise. Once completed, children complete success criteria grid.
Plenary – extend learning by building the English toolkit display together. This will be
frequently referred to, throughout the next two weeks. Children think critically about
what should appear and why.
• Divide English toolkit display into three sections
1. Language & VCOP
2. Features of the genre (is there a hero and village? A night time setting?
3. Spice it up, example of how to improve writing (children might suggest how to
uplevel a sentence here)
Name _______________________________
Date
__________________________________________________
Analysing Writing Grid – Example: Persuasive Writing
Features
Introduction states
of
point of view
persuasive
writing
Catchy slogan or
phrase
Includes a counter
argument but
argues against it
Imperative
statements
Short sentence for
effect
Language
Features
Emotive words and
phrases
High level
connectives
High level
punctuation
High level openers
Children’s
Choice
Standard Operating Procedure for
English Day 6 Drama for Writing
1.
~11.05am
Part 1: Drama
2.
Part 2: Paragraph
writing
3.
4.
~11.40am
5.
Part 3: Plenary
6.
~
12.00pm
Starter: Immediate engagement.
Misconception or SPaG linked to key issues in class.
Or short drama activity linked to today’s learning.
Learning Intention & Success criteria shared
Success Criteria needs to be in two parts
a) For drama - from Speaking & Listening passports
b) For the paragraph writing – from writing passports
Give the context of the lesson and involve children in this, explaining,
discussing and clarifying.
Focus on a particular aspect of the writing process, to be first explored
through drama.
Link to planning scaffold.
Teacher Model each drama / S&L activity
Set ground rules.
Children take part in drama techniques – see guidance sheets for ideas
and explanations.
Teacher Model Paragraph Writing
• Children write a paragraph which will be relevant to Big Writing on
Friday.
•
Focus group: During the paragraph writing, the class teacher will
form a targeted group of 3-6 children, grouped by common gaps in
writing. Teacher model children’s suggestions. Refer to success
criteria throughout.
Plenary – Consolidate learning and extending.
• Consolidate by ‘final checking: Punctuation/ Personal challengechildren have time to go back through their work and confirm that
punctuation is clear and concise. Once completed, children to
ensure ‘personal challenge’ from individual writing passport are
achieved. Complete success criteria grid.
• Extend by adding to the language wall together
Update VCOP board with words children want to use in next two
weeks (post its? Coloured strips on paper?)
Standard Operating Procedure for
Dictogloss
1.
~11.05am
2.
3.
~11.15am
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
~ 11.45am
9.
10.
11.
~12.05pm
Starter: Immediate engagement.
Misconception or SPaG linked to key issues in class, children’s gaps in learning, the
current writing genre and criteria from writing passports.
Learning Intention & Planning Scaffold: Give the context of the lesson by showing
where today’s dictation fits in to the planning of the genre and what the lesson’s
learning intention is. Use relevant planning skeleton.
Dictation: Children to note down a (very average) 5 sentence paragraph. Teachers
might ask children to leave a line in between each sentence, leaving room for the
up-level. Teachers might also not articulate the punctuation in the dictation, leaving
children to ‘hear it for themselves.’
Differentiation options: LA children given ‘word bank’ and closed paragraph,
allowing them to add in key vocabulary. LA children given picture storyboard, a
model simple sentence and simple sentence starters. Modified success criteria.
Success Criteria: Children are involved in explaining and clarifying.
Refer to throughout lesson in mini-plenaries
Teachers must use talk partners as a way to discover knowledge.
Lesson within a Lesson: Whole class teaching. Teaching children the ‘common gap’
discovered from the weekly Big Write, the children’s writing passports and the
‘milestones’ within the essentials curriculum.
This could involve uplevelling the 1st sentence of the dictation using success criteria,
whiteboards and peer collaboration, thereby teacher modelling how to begin.
Up-level: Children working in mixed ability pairs: high levels of collaboration.
Discussing and hypothesising possible ways to improve the work (or reconstruct if
notes of dictation were taken). Children, in their pairs, will use success criteria,
thesaurus and dictionaries to up-level their work.
Focus group for Guided Writing: During the up-levelling process (above) the class
teacher will form a targeted group of 3-6 children, grouped by common gaps in
writing. Teacher model up-levelling 2 or 3 sentences using children’s suggestions.
Refer to success criteria throughout.
Exemplar text: Recap on a part of the exemplar text (seen earlier in week)
Explain why it is such a good example, text mark, discuss and leave for 3 or 4
minutes during final check.
Final Check: Punctuation/ Personal challenge- After the up-levelling process,
children have time to go back through their work and confirm that punctuation is
clear and concise. Once completed, children to ensure ‘personal challenge’ from
individual writing passport are achieved.
Final Copy: Remove exemplar text and redisplay success criteria.
Children write up their final sentences, using black pen and best handwriting.
Ensure children have uplevelled and improved text, not continued the story or made
up their own work!
Plenary Options:
Children show evidence in final copy (with different colour pen) where they have
achieved all aspects of the success criteria.
Child Friendly Passports: Children go to the back of their books and tick off, in
pencil, where and when they are achieved the writing skill.
Use visualizer to display a pupils work, as a class can S/C be identified, can
suggestions for further uplevelling be made?
IDEAS TO EXPLORE:
• Read final copy at the start (before dictation) to enrich the language.
• Stop children in the middle of up-levelling process and allow them to
creep round and check for evidence of success criteria in other students
work.
Standard Operating Procedure for Big Writing
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Big Writing takes place each week in Years 1 – 6, usually on Friday.
It is a chance for children to use and apply skills learnt throughout the week.
Big Writing will cover a wide range of genre as documented in Long Term plans, following the Essentials
curriculum.
Each week, Big writing will be structured in a way that scaffolds and supports children’s writing, providing
conditions for individual children to show their progress in writing. In this respect, any Big Writing that a child
has produced can be levelled to assess their ability in Writing.
Children will conduct a ‘Using and Applying’ piece of Big Writing every four weeks, which will provide less
scaffolding. This will not only help to inform conferencing and planning (including which children to work with
– and for what reason – in Guided Writing groups) but will also help children to become more confident
independent writers.
To ensure that teachers do not inadvertently create conditions where a child’s writing cannot reliably be
levelled as a reflection of their own true ability, the following guidelines should be followed:
Big Writing
Using & Applying
Possible activities during Big Writing
Big Writing
Warm up:
Warm up word and sentence VCOP games
Teacher modelling of word and sentence VCOP
aspects (e.g. how to use a specific connective or
opener)
Planning:
Children quickly search through this week’s
writing in English books for ideas and for best
words and sentences to apply
(5 minute max)
Children search through books to create or add to
success criteria
Teacher provides a context. There is assistance
with what to write about, not how to write it
Collaborative talk during the planning process.
Teacher modelling of planning process, recapping
main features of the genre.
AFL and use of success criteria.
Writing
Teacher model of how to start the writing
Special paper and pens/pencils
Calming Music during writing
AFL prompts and time reminders
6.
7.
8.



x
Not written – modelling
vocally is fine

x






x
x

x
Not written – modelling vocally is
fine
Not written – modelling
vocally is fine

Referred to only at the start
of the lesson
x





Referred to only at the start
of the lesson
All work must be named and dated.
It will be photocopied and sent home (alongside success criteria) as part of weekly Homework.
The original model of Big Writing for Key Stage Two is as follows. This shall be adapted at teacher’s
discretion, but provides a rough timescale to Big Writing:
• Warm up (approx. 35 mins) - fast, fun oracy-based activities linked to what’s expected in writing.
• Planning (approx. 10 mins) Although warm up and planning can be interchangeable
• Short Break
• Writing – 30 – 45 mins
This is based on a KS2 model and should be adapted for KS1
To provide a scaffold for children, the format for planning should be taken from the Planning Scaffolds folder
in the T&L folder on the T drive