Writing

At our school, we intend for our children to be able to write confidently with meaning and purpose. 

A child’s writing journey consists of developing their transcription (spelling/handwriting) and composition (the content and how it is structured) skills in a structured manner over time.  Similar to reading, when children are confident to write, it will unlock the wider curriculum for them and writing continues to serve as a vital skill for success in their future lives. 

During Early Years, much emphasis is put on communication and language to develop the skills to communicate orally.  We deliberately plan for building children’s vocabulary to enhance their spoken communication which then feeds later on into their written communication. 

During Reception, children work particularly on their transcription skills – learning how to hold a pencil, form letters correctly and learn how to spell phonetically plausible words using the first 44 grapheme/phoneme correspondences they are taught during phonics lessons.  Through the RWI phonics scheme, children build their writing stamina and skills over time with a carefully sequenced approach.  This starts with writing single letters, to short words, to simple phrases that are given by the teacher (‘hold a sentence’) and moving on to writing their own carefully scaffolded sentences.  Even at this early stage, children are encouraged to proofread and edit their writing to ensure they have remembered the key components such as how the letters are formed, where they sit on the line, finger spaces and moving on to capital letters and full stops.  There is an opportunity each week where children write as a response to a story they have been learning about as well as independent writing opportunities in the continuous provision. 

As children move into Year 1, they continue to learn writing skills in a sequenced manner through RWI phonics – they learn to spell using further grapheme choices and write in response to the stories they are studying in the RWI lesson.  Further grammar skills linked to the Year 1 National Curriculum expectations are explicitly taught and children build their composition skills each week.  There continues to be a session each week where children work as a whole class to respond to a class text.  Later in the year, this approach is taken every day. 

From Year 2 onwards, we plan and deliver writing sequences linked to high quality texts supported by the planning sequences by the Literacy Tree.  These sequences build children’s writing skills within the block of work as well as across the whole year.  Children are explicitly taught the spelling, punctuation and grammar linked to the National Curriculum expectations along with sentence construction and a range of different genres or purposes for writing.  Teacher model new skills and then through guided practice, children develop and hone their writing skills before moving on to independent practice.   

In terms of transcription, spelling rules and handwriting are explicitly taught in separate sessions and then applied during formal writing lessons.  Where children find these skills difficult, they may have further sessions to support them. 

Regarding composition, children are taught how to plan, draft, revise, edit and publish their work as part of the writing planning sequence. 

Teachers plan for writing outcomes to be published in order for there to be a clear purpose for children to write and share their writing with others. 

Writing sequences and outcomes