Missions Statement

At Chase Lane we want to inspire the children’s love of Literacy by developing their skills in order to become thoughtful readers and creative writers. Our mission is to enable children to immerse themselves fully into a text. They will broaden their speech and language, widen their vocabulary and further their understanding of the different text types. Every child has the potential to be creative writers and confident readers. Through Talk for Writing we want all children to be able to embrace literature in its many forms.

We are a Talk for Writing School

In 2016 Chase Lane implemented a new approach to teaching Literacy called Talk for Writing. This is used from Nursery through to Year 6.  Talk for Writing was developed by the author Pie Corbett. It is fundamentally based on the key principles of how children learn. Talk for Writing enables children to imitate the key language they need orally before they try reading, analysing and recording it.  It is a fun, creative yet also rigorous approach to develop writers.

Talk for Writing has three key phases which work together to develop knowledge, confidence and independence in writing:

Imitation

During this phase the children create actions to accompany the oral re-telling of the story. They also create story maps, using pictures and symbols, to depict actions and events from the text. The key to success for the children is that they internalise the text type through repetition and rehearsal. They also begin to look closely at the language and text features that have been used. 

Innovation

During this phase the teacher and the children begin to change aspects of the model text using their own ideas. They explore the text using different characters, settings or events and new ideas for descriptive language whilst sticking closely to the underlying structure. This process enables the children to write their own versions through developing their ability to generate good words and phrases.  It is during this phase that children also look at how they can address their targets to progress their writing.

Invention

During this phase the children plan and write their own story based on the text type they have been learning. They experiment with the ideas and begin to explore their own style of writing using sentence types from the model text before finally writing their version of the text. 

Talk for Writing works with any genre and has been key to Chase Lane’s success in raising standards of writing across the school.

Approaches to teaching

Children access their learning in a number of ways including through collaborative learning. There are a number of techniques the class teachers use in order to generate discussions or pass on new ideas. Some of these include:

Give one get one – children think of their own ideas first then share these ideas by partnering up with different children around the room.

Stand up, hand up, pair up – children have an opportunity to think of ideas first then share them with the rest of the class by pairing up with different children using a ‘high five’.

3 Before Me/the 5 B’s – children are encouraged to be more independent with their learning and within the classroom. They are offered multiple ways to help them before asking the teacher for help – first use their brain, then check their book, look on the board for help, ask a buddy and finally ask the boss (the adult).

For further information please visit the website www.talk4writing.co.uk .