Writing Intent 

Within our broader English curriculum planning, our intent for writing  is clear:

  • Carefully chosen, imaginative, rich texts are at the heart of our  English curriculum. These texts promote a buzz in the classroom and expose all children to excellent models of written language
  • Children become independent writers across Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. They develop the skills needed to write as they gain an ever increasing knowledge of spelling rules and sentence structure. This then enables them to fully immerse themselves in writing as they move through school, using the new spelling, punctuation and grammar rules they are exposed to in each year
  • With few exceptions, all children are able to write sentences and short stories independently by the end of Year 1
  • Develop their love of writing and believe in their writing skills to confidently communicate their thoughts, emotions and ideas effectively
  • Develop their handwriting skills, beginning with print in the early years foundation stage and moving into pre cursive and cursive in key stage 1, ensuring all joins are correct and writing is legible and well presented

Our approach ensures that our children meet the national curriculum expectations for Writing.

 

Implementation

We are passionate about ensuring our children leave St Clare’s as confident, capable and independent writers. Long, medium and short term planning, alongside progression maps of skills, ensure that a variety of writing genres are progressively taught and built upon within a specific  year and also  year on year. As well as teaching the objectives, teachers are able to embed the skills throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities, ensuring that most children are achieving the objectives of the expected level and some children work at a greater depth standard. All year groups use the same format for assessing writing, which have been produced in line with the end of Key Stage assessment frameworks as published by the Department for Education.

At St Clare’s we fully believe that before children can be expected to pick up a pencil and engage in writing tasks, they first need to become confident and proficient in their gross motor movements and fine motor skills. Carefully planned activities aimed to work on developing the skills needed are available across the EYFS classrooms.

In EYFS, children have daily Little Wandle Letters & Sounds lessons to develop skills like blending and segmenting in preparation for early reading and writing. A wide range of exciting learning areas provide children with opportunities to develop their communication, language and literacy skills on a daily basis, with a focus on child initiated activities. As well as a Writing Area, which provides children with a range of materials with which to experiment and practice mark marking/letter formation (and eventually to practise taught skills), other learning areas are enhanced to provide children with the opportunity to  write in a range of contexts. A range of resources in the outdoor area, including a mud kitchen and writing equipment, provide valuable opportunities to engage children in writing for pleasure. Adult-led activities in EYFS are linked to stories, poems or nursery rhymes or to cross curricular topics. From when they start school, children learn that writing can have a range of purposes and they begin to explore the features of different types of writing. Children use their ever expanding phonic knowledge to communicate in written form. St Clare’s checkpoints are carefully mapped out to enable all children to achieve. Timely interventions are used to close gaps. 

From Year 1 – Year 6, children are introduced to different genres with each genre having a specific purpose.

Ar St Clare’s we write:

  • to inform
  • to entertain
  • to persuade
  • to discuss
  • to express

Each writing block follows the same writing cycle in all year groups. Children are introduced to the different elements of the genre and the writing process includes modelled, shared and independent writing, Punctuation and grammar are carefully planned out against the genres to allow children to apply raught skills.

A piece of independent writing is assessed at the end of every unit of work (typically every 2-3 weeks). These assessments then support whole school termly assessments. Writing is moderated at St Clare’s, both internally and externally, to ensure the very highest standards of accuracy.

Writing LTP–Writing LTP

EY Checkpoints-EYFS Checkpoints