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English Writing

English Writing Subject Leader: Miss R Gavin

Speech and Language: Miss G Nulty

For any more information on Stone’s English Writing Curriculum, please contact the office.

At Stone St Mary’s CE Primary School, we believe that the skills and knowledge which are taught through English provide a solid starting point for all learning across the curriculum. Speaking and Listening links very closely to the development of reading and writing. We want to nurture learners who feel confident to apply their learning from English in every subject across the curriculum.

We use the Talk 4 Writing approach to promote discussion and the embedding of texts and create “life-long writers” who find joy in the writing process.

Intent

Our children need to be able to write in a range of genres, focusing on being able to adapt their language and style of writing. Children will also need to be able to write for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences, using the grammar knowledge and spelling they are taught. Children should be exposed to a vocabulary-rich environment which allows them to make appropriate word choices which leads to their writing being interesting to read.

group of pupils doing some writing
boy writing with a pen in his notebook

Implementation

Writing at Stone St Mary’s C of E Primary School will always have a purpose with a variety of genres and text types, including poetry, being taught throughout the academic year. The teaching of writing is purposeful, robust and shows clear progression for all children. Teachers here focus on embedding the skills taught throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities and ensure that children are achieving the objectives set out in the National Curriculum.

Impact

The impact of our writing can be seen in the books they produce and the outcomes for all groups of pupils within the school.

Pupils’ progress is measured through ongoing assessment and through three key assessment points during the year, as well as ongoing moderation both internally and externally. Learning is planned to address misconceptions and gaps in learning identified by staff to ensure that the curriculum effectively meets the needs of all pupils.

By the end of our children’s time here at Stone St Mary’s C of E Primary School, we will have taught them to be able to:

  • Have a love of reading and writing, across a variety of genres
  • Use rich and varied vocabulary in their written and spoken language
  • Have an English toolkit which equips them to be effective “life-long writers” in all subjects as their journey continues through education.
girl in red shirt writing in a notebook with a pencil

Writing Expectations

We have agreed on a set of writing expectations for each year group. These were created to help our children know which features they should use in all writing.

You may find these useful when supporting your child with their writing at home, encouraging them to try and use each of these key features.

English Writing in Each Stage

The children in our EYFS are taught using the Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds Systematic Synthetic Phonics Scheme. The children are taught phonics every day and will learn the phonemes, graphemes and all digraphs as well as the correct letter formation they need in order to begin writing beyond mark-making. Those children who reach a Good Level of Development (GLD) by the end of their first full year in school will be able to form, mostly correctly, all letters and will be writing and spelling using their phonetical knowledge. Children at GLD will also be writing simple phrases and some sentences that are phonetically plausible and can be read by others, including adults. Children are encouraged and inspired to write both in their Literacy lessons through our ‘Talk 4 Writing’ scheme where they will learn about texts including Owl Babies and The Hungary Caterpillar and also in child-initiated learning time, where they may create shopping lists in the role play area or label parts of a treasure island!

Click the link here to find out more about our Phonics curriculum

Throughout Year 1, our teachers build on the writing skills taught to the children in EYFS. The children will continue to write for several different purposes, including labelling drawings, writing letters; starting with horizontal and diagonal strokes to join handwriting and beginning to form short narratives, again inspired by our ‘Talk 4 Writing’ scheme. The children will be taught texts including Handa’s Surprise and The Whale Who Wanted More. Children will continue being taught to write in sentences, linking ideas together using ‘and’ and ‘but’, demarcating a sentence with a capital letter at the beginning of it and using full stops at the end.

While in Year 2, our children will often but not always mirror the genre being used in Year 1 but there is a real focus on building on the skills taught in Year 1 and progressing their writing further. Using texts that include The Magic Paintbrush and When The Rain Comes, children will concentrate on ensuring their use of capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks are used more consistently to punctuate their writing. They will continue to build on use of connectives in their writing including ‘if’, ‘when’ and ‘because.’ They will also be introduced to using commas in a list and how to show contractions using apostrophes. The children will be taught to use a wider range of adjectives, adverbs and nouns in all written pieces, compared to how they wrote in Year 1.

Click the links below to find out more information about KS1:

Children in LKS2 will use planning formats to begin structuring their ideas for both fiction and non-fiction texts, often using key texts studied that include The Egyptian Cinderella and Running On The Roof Of The World to magpie ideas from existing authors that they feel help captivate the reader. Children will focus on using key and ambitious vocabulary before writing, using synonyms where possible. Our children will be introduced to paragraphs and their purpose, as well as fronted adverbials and how those are demarcated in writing. Our children will also be taught to regularly self-assess their own writing and the writing of their peers.

In UKS2, our children will build on their writing by being taught about cohesion and how this effect can be used to tie paragraphs together. Through quality texts that include Journey To The River Sea and War Horse, the children will use variety of simple and complex sentences that will be accurately punctuated. Children will be taught about the use of parenthesis and relative clauses and their vocabulary choices will be continuously challenged. Our children will edit and improve their own writing and look to include a writer’s flare to their pieces.

Click the links below to find out more information for KS2:

English Writing Progression

SEND Information

Interventions and support are part of our ongoing assessment of our children. All of our staff offer adaptive teaching to enable access for all, providing aids, pre-teaching and other supports and interventions as outlined in the Kent Mainstream Core Standards. Our range of targeted interventions include Busy Fingers to improve the fine motor skills of our children and Colourful Semantics that assist children in how to correctly structure a sentence are available for all those who we feel need it to help their progress in writing. Word mats, coloured overlays, the pre-teaching of vocabulary and the use of Clicker 7 or 8 software is also readily available in our classrooms to continue to support our children to achieve their full potential.

English Writing Extra Resources