Effective Guided writing is an essential tool in a teacher’s repertoire. I support class teachers to develop the skills of Guided learning to target the areas of writing children find hardest to learn like paragraphing and sentence structure.
In a full package of support, I work with teachers to identify which of the following components they are finding most problematic and which will have the greatest impact on the effectiveness of Guided writing;
High Quality Teaching and Learning
Choosing appropriate pedagogy to meet individual needs, including;
- A broad repertoire of teaching and organisational approaches, carefully planned to meet the needs of all children
- Differentiated questioning
- Appropriate use of modelling and explanation – including effective Shared writing including Teacher modelling, Teacher scribing and Supported composition.
- Opportunities for children to practice and apply their learning
- Children are challenged to think and are happy to share their ideas and to explain their reasoning and methods
The learning environment
The writing environment is crucial to develop independent, motivated writers. This support package will identify the resources that should be available to both teachers and pupils in a classroom in order to create a supportive environment for pupils to learn to write, and the strategies teachers need to deploy in order that children can write independently.
Focused target setting
- Effective assessment of children’s learning with opportunities for ongoing assessment.
- Use of AfL strategies to identify areas of weakness in pupils understanding.
- Use of the writing targets to set targets for groups of pupils to achieve during one off or a series of guided writing sessions.
- Clear feedback given to children on both focus of learning and progress made
Grouping and Intervention
- Purposeful, flexible grouping selected to have common current learning need rather than static grouping based on overall attainment.
- Regular reviewing of progress of individuals and adjustments made to the grouping.
Working through some, or all of these areas if outstanding classroom practice through a range of peer coaching, workshop sessions, joint planning and teaching teachers become more confident in the use of Guided writing as a targeted intervention strategy.
These video extracts are taken from the Primary National Strategy website;
