Writing Inquiry 2016, final analysis

This was quite a large goal to choose to focus on - following my chosen 3 and using the learnings to help all.

I did loose focus in the middle, and this was due to other pressures which clearly tells me this turned out to not be a priority for me.

I have definitely learnt from this inquiry though. Firstly, the scale of this inquiry was too big. I would have been better to choose one element of the writing process to look at which would have given me a better focus. Secondly, it has shown me the rate of change in these children. Child 1 is still not writing clearly, but he has made massive progress. Child 2 has also made incredible progress, and child 3 came in at a higher level than the other 2 and so her progress isn't as obvious.

This also links to the progressions as to get from level 1.3 to 2.1 is a big jump.

Writing review end of Term 2, 2016

Looking at my chosen 3, plus the CL comments for our Skippers/Pounamu children has sparked some ideas for writing time.





Whilst punctuation is a surface feature need for child 2 and 3 they also both needs support with structuring their writing. This held true for others too.
To try and help their learning in this I decided to start with a SOLO rubric on punctuation with examples.



The examples are displayed so that the children know what they are aiming for.

As well as working on punctuation, a deeper feature that I want the children to learn is how to structure their writing so it has ideas, order and flow. To help this I focused on writing a recount which the children do all the time...interesting to note that they had no clue what a recount was! Just shows how explicit we need to be when teaching, and that we need to use the language of learning.

This has all just started and Eve is now the writing owl so we will have to see what happens next!

Learning Intentions and Success Criteria

Reading chapter 4 of Clarity in the Classroom has made me reflect on how I craft LIs and SC and the realisation that I have often made the mistake Michael Absolum talks about. When coming up with the success criteria, I frequently repeat the LI but change a verb or add “will be able to….” Absolum says that we are often too focused on the specific skills rather than thinking about why we want students to learn whatever it is.

We need to be aiming for clarification - looking at not only what, but why and how and then checking in to find out how we are doing.

For example I am currently working with a group of students who need to add full stops to their writing. I would usually have my LI as “putting full stops in the correct place” with the SC  of “has full stops in the correct place”. This doesn’t actually help students. What I need to have as a LI is a "why" - a “bigger picture” concept. So for full stops my LI might be “to break up writing into ideas so it is easy to read” with the SC being “we will have full stops in the right place”. This lets the students know why they need to learn what I am trying to teach them, which in turn will hopefully motivate and engage them.

My lightbulb moment for this group was taking the LI back to the “bigger picture” concept which then opens up lots of different avenues for teaching - the "how". Rather than persevering with the actual skill and highlighting each piece of work where there should be full stops, I need to look more globally at full stops, by linking reading and writing, I think it will make the use of full stops really explicit as they have seen, used and heard many examples and we model the use of full stops everyday, multiple times a day.

Once full stops have been conquered we can move onto commas and have fun with phrases like - eats shoots and leaves, time to eat Grandma!

SOLO, Pebbles and Clarity in the Classroom

I think this is going to be a post I keep coming back to as it feels like the cloud is lifting - all be it slowly, and that my thoughts are becoming clearer.

A few different streams of thought and PD are slowly coming together - Clarity in the Classroom, Pebbles and SOLO.

My takeouts from the Clarity in the Classroom readings so far, are around making it clear what a child is suppose to be learning, and the benefits this will have in building a learning focused relationship. This links to our pebbles (especially in maths) as the children know which pebbles they have and so know their next steps and so what they are learning - although we need to be more explicit with this. On another level we could start to link in SOLO which is all about making the learning intentions clear for all and the progress - how to get deeper learning by building on existing learning.

One element that is not always clear in all my lessons are my expectation of what they will learn, so if I don’t know this (or it’s not clear) then how are they suppose to know what they are learning? This might also explain why some children don’t push themselves - while they know their next steps there is no expectation that they will be working on them.

Lots of work to do here and I've made a start;

Big Step 3 - Relationships

Writing with my mentor group

I have seen amazing growth and progress in a number of writers and it is heart-warming to see. Several writers I had thought of as quite reluctant are now asking to write everyday. Pinpointing why is hard as i’m not one to sell myself and i’m sure there is lots of things at play, however I do believe that the relationships I have built with my mentor group, and the trust that there is, is paying off. These children know I want the best for and from them and as we celebrate success (in a fairly whoop whoop low key way) they want to do their best. They are moving from writing and reading for me to doing it for themselves - finding their voices and giving them an audience - knowing that we (all mentors) want to read their stories. The level of enthusiasm is quite exhausting but well worth it to see the joy on their faces. Must share this joy with their families, just incase they haven’t!

Literacy Workshop

As a team of mentors we had to reflect on our literacy practise and as part of our professional learning we each developed a goal. I linked my literacy goal to one of my big steps – my writing inquiry.

I will begin to build a strength in: making explicit links between phonics, reading and writing.

The actions I will take: make a sign that all mentors put their weekly phonics focus on and then use this whenever I can.

Publishing time in Pounamu (term 1, 2016)

At the end of the term all Pounamu children were able to publish their favourite piece of writing from the term. A great way for them to have an audience for their work.

Here is the work by last terms Spaceships;



Here is the work by last terms Rockets;



Here is the work by last terms Hot Air Balloons;



Here is the work by last terms Aeroplanes;

Writing Reflection

To help with my Writing Inquiry and see what my next steps are I looked in more detail at my chosen 3 students to analyse the good, the bad and the brilliant.



My big realisation from looking at their writing is that having looked (studied!) the progressions, this really helped me pinpoint (with Jill's help) what their next steps were.

My next steps are to;

• keep this analysis going - do it again at the end of the term,
• feedback to the children their specific goals
• based on what happens next with these 3 then perhaps have 2 levels of goals for each child
• be more confident in my ability as I have had a positive impact
• create and display some exemplars so children have a bench mark - they know what "good writing" looks like.

The Practicalities of pebbles

Moving into next term I will be teaching reading again, and some of the readers will be emergent / magenta readers, which I have never taught before!

I love the challenge of this and so decided to pull apart the SPS reading progressions and pebble-ise them so I have a clearer understanding of what I need the learners to be able to do. I don’t want to make things “tick-boxy” but I do need to know where to start, and how to identify a child’s next step.

I just looked at magenta, red and yellow as I don’t think in the next term I’ll get my readers beyond this level.

Here are my pebbles!

To help with my writing inquiry I also pebble-ised the writing progressions. Initially I grouped them into levels but was then prompted to think about the progressions in a less linear way so the pebbles below are grouped by focus areas.


This work on pebbling the progressions has made the progressions more accessible and real for me and I now have a go to document that I understand to help me.

To help with communicating learning, and to hopefully motivate the children, each individual pebble could be used as a "badge" of achievement - either on Linc-Ed or as "tokens" the children could collect - this idea was inspired by Claire.

Big Step 1 - Writing

Had a great meeting with Muireann this week and we broke down my first goal;

Go on a "Personal Writing Inquiry" I need to learn how to help my learners.

This is a huge goal and so to make sure I am progressing I need to break this into smaller, more manageable goals.

Looking back over this term (term 1, 2016) I have been focusing on ideas - making sure the children have something to write about. Starting each lesson with the mentors modelling the drawing of their ideas means that it is now automatic for the children. As we write over several days this drawing of ideas has become really important as it is a reference point for the children to go back to to continue writing.

Moving on, and building on this, I now want to focus on feedback - making sure it is accurate and timely. Next term will be a different set up for writing, and as we get more children it will become harder to see each child in every writing session so the reviewing of books and the feedforward to them will become key in making sure they progress.


Having broken this big step into smaller, baby ones, I now need to go and do the same for my other goals.

My 3 BIG Steps - update

Relationships - Having lost a bit of professional capacity over the last week and combine this with complete exhaustion I have gone back to herding. I am more aware of other things I should be doing and I do try and use some of the techniques (from Kevin Knight) I should be using, and not just “sweeping”. What I do, and what I think I do, may not be completely aligned and so next week I will either record or Swivel myself during mentor time so I can truly understand what I actually do and so what I need to work on.

To give myself some credit I do feel that relationships have been built as through the writing of the CL comments I became more aware of what they can do and their needs. Knowing their needs will enable us to set goals and build and develop the relationships further.

Architect of Opportunities – During concept time I was designing learning that was fun and engaging but as I said in an earlier post it wasn’t very focused. Weeks 10 and 11 (or Term 2!) I aim to be focused whilst also being adaptive to their needs.

Writing – Feedback from the team is positive about what we are achieving and how the writing sessions are going. I have some other ideas that I would like to try, although next term I might not be one of the “Writing Owls” so writing time for me will probably happen during Concept time.

My ideas are;

• Use progress pebbles as a way of tracking small achievements
• Set up an emergent group that focuses on the fine motor skills

o   Holding the pencil

o   Controlling the pencil to make firm lines on the page

o   Draw and paint within lines or mazes

• Split the writing sessions so we have creative and a technical direct teaching where the creative is focused on the deeper features and the technical is on the surface features
• Have examples of the different stages on the wall so children can see what "success" looks like.

Only time will tell what works and it's great being in an environment that is supportive of the changes and tweaks to the teaching we do. 

My Writing Inquiry

As part of my writing inquiry I decided I wanted to find out about childrens' attitudes towards writing so I designed  a little form that I completed with 2 writing groups today (the other 2 I'll do later).

Question 1 - the overwhelming majority do like writing - a great starting point! Have to make sure that this level of enjoyment doesn't decrease - no pressure!

When asked what they found easy, answers ranged from "writing I am" to "holding the pencil properly". Easy words and drawing a picture are the 2 most common answers which is interesting as a focus this week has been on drawing ideas.

When asked what they found hard, answers ranged from "nothing" to "everything"! Hard words and puzzled faces were the 2 most common answers. But other interesting points to note are "forming letters" (my words) from the younger children and it was also good to see some honest answers - "to start" from one of my chosen ones who does struggle to start. Showing great self-awareness from a 5 year old.

When asked what their goals were there was a difference in the age of the children  the Hot Air Balloons have generally been at school for 5 weeks whilst the Spaceships range from 15 to 45 weeks of schooling. It is clear to see that our focus as mentors has been on the finger-spaces, or perhaps it's the "wriggly worm" that has caught their attention. This is interesting as I thought my focus has been on the ideas stage but that is clearly not the message!

My final question was "What are you learning?" and some just looked puzzled as if to say "to write of course" and others said that. This tells me two things - firstly, that I need to be more careful about the wording of my questions as I was trying to find out the detail - the intentions, and secondly that we are not be clear about the learning intentions as none could really articulate this to me.

All in all an interesting wee survey and I will take the results back to the team, and alter some aspects of the lesson structure.

The start of one of my 3 BIG steps

My Writing Inquiry
Am currently immersing myself into the writing process. I have selected 3 children from my mentor group and I will follow them as we progress through the year. They have different needs and hopefully my analysis of them (with help from Jill) can inform my teaching practice for the other learners.
Before starting on this journey Jill asked "What do I want to get out of it?". I want to know where to start, how do I get my desired outcome of running a successful writing programme.
So my first question is "What does a successful writing programme look like?" and my current answer is I want children who are;
Engaged - in the flow of writing
Motivated - want to write
Confident  - have an audience and feel valued
Take risks  - will have a go and try

To try and understand this more, and how I might start getting these things, I will spend some time observing RT who I believe runs a great writing programme.

Following on from a conversation with Jill I have come up with this progression;

I'm sure the above image will morph as I go further in to this and as we work as a team.

The aim is to keep the plan and the structure of the writing session the same and then change the context. This way the children will get used to how the sessions will work which, in time, should enable each session to be more about the children writing than us modelling.

Claire linked these ideas to;
The Plan - stems from the children's needs, (getting to know thy learner)
The Modelling - is around the teaching goal, (knowing the progressions linked to learners)
The Groupings - be based on needs so we can workshop  (Yellow thinking - Vision, all children writing everyday - mustn't rush this though!!)

I'm feeling more confident even after reflecting on one weeks worth of work and excited to start next week. Must make sure I feed all of this forward to Eve who I am team teaching with, and to SLOW DOWN, it doesn't have to happen tomorrow!

Finished Desired Realities

Found it quite hard to go back to my realities a week later - learning for me, I should have carried on whilst my thoughts were fresh! Despite this my image is finished as are my 3 Great Steps.

Step 1;
Go on a "Personal Writing Inquiry" I need to learn how to help my learners;

• Asking for internal support from experts
• Make the progressions portable
• Read, read and read!
• Follow my chosen 3 on their writing journey and use the learnings to help all

Step 2;

Be "an Architect of Opportunities";

• Differentiate the learning
• Use the environment
• Be adaptable to needs
• Observe and ask
• Let it go (accept and become more comfortable with adaptations)

Step 3:

Relationships - build, maintain and grow through;

• Respecting all (children, mentors, students)
• Listening and asking
• Getting and giving feedback
• Observing
• Read, read and read!