Writing

Intent

At All Saints we aim for all children to become creative writers with sound grammatical knowledge and a rich imagination. We believe the children should have the opportunity to practise and develop their writing skills and stamina every day. We are dedicated to spoken language underpinning the development of reading and writing and so are passionate about providing language rich environments. Teachers use a combination of rich whole class reading texts and real life writing scenarios to enable pupils to become fully immersed in their writing.

Implementation 

The teaching of writing starts in the Early Years setting with mark making. The children are taught the correct pencil grip and explore making marks in a range of media such as paint, sand and shaving foam. There is continuous provision for mark making in the Early Years setting. There is a high focus on the correct letter formation in Reception and this is key for their cursive writing later in their school life. 

As children develop through the school, they are given opportunities to practise and improve their writing for a range of purposes and audiences. The basis of our writing progression can be found here. Throughout their time at All Saints, children receive ample opportunity to write in a range of genres such as stories, information reports, instructions, myths and legends and newspaper reports as well as being provided with opportunities to choose their writing. The formal teaching of writing begins at word and sentence level and builds to structuring an extended piece of writing. Children are also taught how to edit effectively and give opportunities to draft and publish their work for real audiences. 

Through our English lessons, children experience a range of high-quality and thought-provoking texts every term. The core texts  provide the basis of our English curriculum and teachers use a wider range of books and text types in addition to these to ensure every pupil has access to a broad and rich range of books. We also ensure that children are exposed to a number of text types including poetry which can be seen on our poetry progression document here. 

We recognise that writing is a complicated process and, therefore, in order for children to succeed, our planning provides a range of scaffolds to support their success. These scaffolds include; rich classroom discussions, the use of Jane Considine's approach 'The Write Stuff', drama and role play, embedded ICT, writing for a range of purposes and audiences, explicit grammar teaching in context, exposure to high quality texts, visual and language scaffolds as well as the systematic teaching of spelling and handwriting.

Impact 

Writing at All Saints enables our pupils to write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others as well as write for enjoyment. Our pupils understand that writing has a purpose and value and enjoy letting their creativity flow. All Saints pupils understand the writing process and the worth of each stage of composition and they feel confident to put pen to paper and write for a range of audiences and purposes.

 What Do Our Children Think About Writing?

“I like writing because you can write anything based on the book you are reading, and you can make it as exciting as you want. Writing can be very fun because you can use your imagination and make up your own ideas!” - Hattie, Year 3

"I like writing cards to people and knowing lots of letters so I can write shopping lists!" - Maisie, Reception