At St Peter’s it is our vision that pupils will be fluent in reading, writing and spoken language. Through the teaching of a progression of knowledge and skills our pupils will be confidently literate. All children will develop a life-long love of literature and through this they will identify themselves as writers by developing:

• How they communicate with others
• How they are expressing themselves
• Their own identity as a writer
• Their understanding the world and their place in it

Our choice of texts will place our pupils in their own linguistic, cultural and social backgrounds as well as introducing them to social and cultural contexts beyond those with which they are familiar with. We will make meaningful contexts and purposes for work writing as well as making links with other subjects.

Intent

At St. Peter’s CE Primary Academy we want all children to be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing and reach their full potential.

Our aims are:

• Guide and nurture each individual on their own personal journeys to becoming successful writers.
• Provide exciting writing opportunities and experiences that engage and enhance all pupils.
•  We want all children to acquire a wide vocabulary and to be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school.
• We want all children to have a solid understanding of grammar and apply it effectively to their writing.
• We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
•  We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a legible, cursive, individual handwriting style.
• We want every child to have a good knowledge of phonics to springboard children to becoming fluent writers.
• To plan a progressive curriculum to build upon previous teaching, with regular assessment to ensure each child’s needs are met to reach their full potential.

Implementation

At St. Peters Primary Academy, the skills of writing are taught 5x a week across the whole school. Each class studies one high quality text and one non-fiction text type each half-term.

Long, medium and short term planning and the use of progression maps ensure that a variety of text types are taught progressively and built upon across the school.

Writing is also a focus across the curriculum. Children are given the opportunity to transfer and build upon their knowledge they have learnt in English lessons to learning in the other subjects.

Through a structured progression, children will acquire and 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 their writing. Within each unit of work, sequenced lessons ensure that prior learning is checked and built upon and that National Curriculum objectives are taught through:

• Identifying and discussing vocabulary used in the text
• Opportunities to participate in drama
• Exploring the features f different text types
• Shared writing
• Discrete spelling, punctuation and grammar activities
• Independent writing
• Planning, drafting, editing, up levelling writing
• Performing.

Handwriting

At St.Peter’s Primary Academy, during the foundation stage children are taught to sit properly in order to have the correct posture for writing, hold a pencil in the correct position and develop a legible handwriting style. In Key Stage 1 handwriting is modelled and practised everyday and through formative assessment extra support is identified and put in place where needed.

Spelling

From Year 2, classes follow a progressive spelling scheme which is taught discretely each week. Through exploring spelling patterns and rules, we aim to create confident and proficient spellers. Children are also taught to:

• Proofread their spellings
• Recognise and use word origins, families and roots to build their skills
• Use dictionaries and thesauruses.

Impact

Teachers use assessment as an integral part of the teaching and learning process and link it clearly to children’s next steps.

Children know what they need to work on to make progression.

A final outcome is produced at the end of each unit taught which is in-line with National Curriculum expectations. This then informs the teaching in the next unit.

Moderation takes place once a term to assess that there is progression across all year groups.

 

For writing end points by year group, please see the document below.

For our long-term text overview, please see the document below.