Intent

At St. Mary’s Primary School, we want all children to reach their full potential and to be able to confidently communicate their ideas, knowledge and feelings through their writing.

Our aims are to:

• Nurture and guide each child to becoming successful writers on their own individual journeys.
• Provide engaging and exciting writing opportunities and experiences that enthuse all children and enhance learning.
• Give all children the tools to use a wide vocabulary and to be able to spell words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school.
• Provide a secure understanding of grammar skills so children can apply them effectively in their writing.
• Ensure all children write clearly, coherently and fluently, adapting their language and style in a range of contexts and purposes, and for a range of audiences.
• Encourage all children to take pride in the presentation of their writing.
• Plan a progressive and bespoke curriculum to build upon previous learning.
• Incorporate regular assessment to ensure each child’s needs are met to reach their full potential.

Implementation

At St. Mary’s Primary School, writing is taught five times per week across the whole school. We follow the Talk for Writing sequence, where each year group studies a different high-quality text focussing on two genres, lasting six weeks.

Through our writing process, children will learn the skills to plan, draft and refine their written work over time and are encouraged to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing. Children at St. Mary’s are encouraged that making mistakes are learning opportunities.

We ensure each child’s individual needs are met through differentiated tasks, starting points, scaffolding, shared writing and guided writing. Grammar lessons are taught throughout the unit, linking to feedback in books and relevant to the text type. ‘Scoop up’ groups take place throughout the week with small groups of children to fill any gaps identified from previous learning.

Long, medium- and short-term planning and the use of our Curriculum Overview ensure that a variety of genres are progressively taught, revisited and built upon throughout the year and throughout the school. Children are given the opportunity to transfer and build upon their knowledge of a genre studied during English lessons and apply this learning to a foundation subject.

Within each unit of work, sequenced lessons ensure that prior learning is checked and built upon and that National Curriculum objectives are taught through a range of approaches:

• Opportunities to participate in drama, performance & spoken language activities
• Exploring the features of different text types and high-quality modelled examples
• Handwriting practise
• Discrete Phonics, Spelling and Grammar lessons
• Independent and extended writing opportunities
• Planning, drafting, editing, up-levelling and presenting

A Year 6 example of poetry rehearsal and using freeze frames to engage learners in texts and support understanding.