How to use... Catch-up Writing Roots

The Catch-up Writing Roots can be found in the planning section of the website and currently there is one for Year 2 onwards. As the name suggests, these Writing Roots are ideal for supporting children as writers to revisit and recall skills taught from previous years group, embedding them in purposeful pieces of writing before gradually bringing the skills up to pitch or near-pitch.

Although these were initially written for schools returning from lockdown as a way to support children review skills, they still remain incredibly relevant and many schools have decided to place them at the start of the year. After the summer holidays, children still need a writing planning sequence that gives them ample opportunities to recall previously taught skills and terminology. Children need opportunities to revise the building blocks of writing in a creative, engaging and purposeful way. These Catch-up Writing Roots are the perfect way to ease children back into the craft of writing.

Catch-up Writing Roots have exactly the same layout as the standard year group Writing Roots. There are a few big differences however. Firstly, on the cover page, there are curriculum statements from the year group children are currently in and from the preceding year group. These are colour-coded so that when teachers look at the skills pitch of each lesson (the LOs and SC), they can see at a glance which lessons draw more heavily on from the preceding year group’s curriculum and which from the current.

The preceding year group curriculum coverage is in magenta and the at-pitch curriculum coverage is in teal. Each Catch-up Writing Root starts with lessons which draw more heavily on the magenta LOs and SC and, as the Writing Root progresses the LOs and SC become more teal, gradually bringing lessons up to pitch for those year groups.

In this Catch-Up Wriitng Root for Town is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz and Sydney Smith, the children explore a story of a young boy growing up in a mining community in the 1950s. Children arrive to class to find several objects/clues around the text including a postcard; a shell; a piece of charcoal; a clocking-on card. They use these to make inferences before going on to write an instant poem. After making front page predictions around the illustration and title, the children share the story and – amongst other things - write predictions, make comparisons, create a

section of dialogue and create a book jacket complete with blurb and tagline. They then plan and write a narrative sequel, drawing upon the language and structures used by the author so as to emulate the style.

When a great dam was built by the Kielder Water in Northumberland, the valley below slowly filled with water. But just before this, when the villagers had been moved out, two musicians went back to the abandoned valley. They tore down the boards over the houses, stepped inside and started to play – for this would be the last time that music would be heard in this place. This book explores themes such as change, community and memory. The Writing Root starts when children find a mysterious message in a time capsule from a resident from Kielder before the

town was purposely flooded. In the time capsule they find some sheet music and photos of old Kielder. Children go on to create their own dams using a variety of materials and write about why dams and reservoirs are important. The sequence of learning will allow children to describe the lush landscape of Kielder Water and will build towards children writing a holiday brochure to encourage visitors to come to Kielder Water.