Our philosophy on writing is:
Just as an artist needs to be a master of her/his tools and resources, so a writer needs to be a master of her/his VGPS*!
*Vocabulary, Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling
That's why we teach a dedicated VGPS session every day, which usually leads into a composition** session.
**the act of writing
Of course the best writing composition happens when the writer has a clear purpose and a specific audience.
Our job as a school is to teach the components of writing well and then to give plentiful opportunities for children to practise their writing, often in other curriculum areas like science, history, geography as examples...
We use Grammarsaurus resources to help make VGPS knowledge and understanding 'stick'.
We check in children's work books across the school and across the curriculum to see if children are working consistently at age-appropriate levels and if they're not, we see if extra support or challenge is needed.
And how do we just 'add creativity' you might ask...?
Children are born with creativity and we just need to provide opportunity, encouragement, stimulus and contexts for their creativity to be unleashed!