What is Working Nationally and Locally

What is working nationally?

To explore the evidence of programmes, take a look at Evidence 4 Impact, which looks at interventions available in the UK and has details of their effectiveness and cost.
Effective educational intervention database

What is working locally, for writing in Primary schools?

As part of engagement with the KS2 Challenge, a number of high-performing schools shared approaches and professional development activity which has been successful in improving writing outcomes by the end of KS2.

Interestingly, all schools who fed back, had moved away from using commercial schemes for writing, and cited school-wide consistency in high-expectations and consistently good teaching of a coherent curriculum, as foundational factors in improvement.

Here is what some of our local Primary schools had to say:

Common Approaches Shared

We have explored writing our own units for teaching writing rather than following a scheme.
We use three week writing units based on a key text which is carefully selected as part of a wider and diverse curriculum.
We use strong models and WAGOLLs to show children examples of what 'excellent' looks like.
There is lots of teacher modelling and co-created writing using provided vocabulary and sentence stem scaffolds.
We explicitly teach vocabulary at the start of English units and in other subjects.
We have planned for more opportunities for oral rehearsal in our English lessons.
We have a three-week structure of 'read it; try it; write it' which leads to a final piece of writing.
We give whole class feedback and directly teach editing skills as a means of closing the attainment gap.
We have a well-planned curriculum which is linked across units and year groups and clearly identified purposes for writing.
This is all documented in a clear curriculum map.

Planning and Implementation of Approaches

'Senior leadership involvement, alongside the English Lead to develop our curriculum with guidance from VNET'
'Use of staff meeting/training time and coaching from subject lead.''
'Sharing good practice across the school. '
'Monitoring through book looks and lesson visits.'
'Co-planning and paired teaching.'
'Observing other teachers.'

CPD Provider Support

'VNET as part of the English Networking sessions has been very useful. It has kept me informed of updates with English and has made me aware of significant research to share with staff. The sessions have provided lots of practical ideas to try at school and have covered the aspects of English which continually prove to be a challenge.'
'Worked with a VNET consultant in school. This has been extremely beneficial as the CPD has been tailored to what I need support with as a subject leader.'

We would love to hear what's working for your school, specifically in writing, and find out about your approach and which providers you engage with. Please complete this short survey :
Tell us more about your writing CPD and practices