The intent of our writing curriculum is to enable the children to become confident and enthusiastic writers who understand and are able to apply with increasing confidence and competence the characteristics of a wide range of genres, both fiction and non-fiction.

We teach the children to:

•  Write with confidence, fluency and with an understanding of genres;
•  Understand the sound and spelling system and use this to spell accurately;
•  Have fluent and legible handwriting;
•  Have an interest in words and their meanings and a growing vocabulary;
•  Know, understand and be able to write in a range of genres in fiction and poetry, and understand and be familiar with some of the ways in which narratives are structured through basic literary ideas of setting, character and plot;
•  Understand, use and be able to write a range of non-fiction texts;
•  Plan, draft, revise and edit their own writing;
•  Have suitable technical vocabulary through which to understand and discuss their writing;
•  Through reading and writing, develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.

How we teach writing

Daily English lesson

English Units are planned to progress through the phases of creating an interest,  reading response and analysis, gathering content and planning, all of which equip the children with the knowledge and tools they need children to be successful in the final writing phase.

Each lesson incorporates focused learning of an element of grammar or punctuation relevant to text type or genre. 

Talk for writing

The children memorise different types of texts so that they learn words and phrases to use in their own writing.

Spelling

Spelling is taught mainly discretely, although links are made where possible to aspects of grammar taught in the main English lessons, for example when teaching how suffixes or prefixes change the meaning of words. Our main resource for teaching spelling is the 'No Nonsense Spelling' programme. (Raintree). Children are given spellings to learn for homework and practise them in sentences dictated by the teacher.

Handwriting

In KS1 and KS2, Handwriting is taught using the Teach Handwriting Scheme to help children develop fluent and legible handwriting. Alongside the development of a cursive handwriting style, this scheme promotes the development of core strength and good posture. 

 Writing across the curriculum

Children produce a quality piece of writing every day – this might be part of a literacy lesson, or writing in other subjects.

 

The children learn to write for lots of different purposes:

Letters           Recounts      Discussion texts

To persuade      Reports       Instructions 

Explanations       Different types of stories

Playscripts