Intent
At Eastry CE Primary School, we aim to create a positive and engaging writing culture, where all our children can feel confident and become passionate, independent writers. We acknowledge the different skills, experiences and knowledge that the children bring to school and from these starting points, we aim to empower pupils with the skills to communicate and ensure that they have clear opportunities to build the language skills necessary to fully access the curriculum. We aim to develop the children’s vocabulary by exposing them to a rich language environment with opportunities to develop oracy skills.
Our writing curriculum is broad, balanced and progressive with exciting opportunities and experiences that engage and enhance all pupils and enable writing for different styles, purposes and audiences: building upon knowledge and skills taught previously. We also provide opportunities to encompass focussed writing practice, including handwriting, phonics, grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Within our school, children are able to communicate their ideas and emotions through writing, as we ensure the curriculum is inclusive and enables equal opportunities for all. Therefore, through adaptations and appropriate support, we guide and nurture every pupil on their own personal journey to becoming a successful writer. We also feel that refining and editing writing over time is an important part of the writing process and we teach pupils to do this as they move through the school. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing and can write clearly and accurately progressing from printing to cursive joined writing.
Implementation
Writing is at the heart of our timetable and is taught everyday as well as opportunities to transfer writing skills across the wider curriculum. It is led by the core subject leader in conjunction with the senior leadership team who regularly and collaboratively monitor, evaluate, and review teaching and learning. Throughout the school, pupils’ writing achievements and progress is celebrated in weekly worships.
EYFS:
As children start school in EYFS, they are given a wide range of mark-making resources, including paintbrushes, felt-tip pens, pencils, chalk and crayons, are available daily across both indoor and outdoor provision. Writing and mark-making opportunities are embedded throughout all areas, with dedicated spaces and purposeful invitations that encourage children to explore marks, form letters and begin writing words and simple sentences independently.
Children develop the physical skills needed for writing through daily gross and fine motor activities, including 'Funky 5' sessions and weekly 'Write Dance', alongside opportunities to climb, sweep and explore movement within continuous provision.
Communication and language are developed through adult modelling, the planning and review of Discovery Time, and Language Through Colour, which supports children in extending their spoken sentences before transferring ideas into writing.
Adult-led writing activities, often linked to stories or topics, provide opportunities to practise pencil grip, posture, letter formation and the application of taught phonics, with adults offering targeted support. Writing is given purpose through meaningful experiences such as shopping lists, letters, notes and story writing.
Drawing Club provides highly engaging, story-led sessions that develop vocabulary, imagination and early writing. Linked to Language Through Colour, children use talk, drawing and writing to explore who, where and what doing, culminating in 'Adventure Time', where they create and write their own imaginative story endings.
Moving into KS1 and beyond:
At Eastry, where possible, writing themes are linked to topics or texts and children are given the opportunity to make links with the wider curriculum. We acknowledge the importance of developing oracy and a ‘talk for writing approach’ is used to support children with their language and ability to ‘speak a sentence.’
Children take part in a writing journey that begins with a ‘hook.’ This could be, and is not limited to: an experience, text, image or topic. Activities such as character building, role play and descriptive writing may be used to develop ideas and vocabulary along with practising specific sentence structures. Modelled writing is an essential tool used within all classes to support and enhance progress.
Clear adaptations are made to enable all children to succeed and this may be through (but not limited to) additional widgit word banks with key vocabulary, computer literacy programmes, scaffolded planning frames, talking tins or the use of ‘Language through Colour.’
Specific grammar and punctuation knowledge is taught within units where children are able to learn specific features that can be transferred to their writing. Planning is a central part of the writing process and once children have drafted, all children have access to a writing checklist which enables them to assess their work against a specific writing criteria. We believe that the editing process enables children to improve and up level their work, whilst improving their proofreading skills. This is often guided by the teacher and can also be completed with a peer with the aim that children will develop the skills to eventually edit independently.
We aim for children to experience a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Particularly in KS2, children will be exposed to a range of written genre, enabling them to identify text features and learn to write for a range of purposes. Our writing journey always ends with our children publishing their work in best where we encourage them to be proud and celebrate the work they have produced.
We aim for our Eastry writer’s journey to ensure consistency across the school and give our children opportunities to transfer and develop knowledge and skills learnt as well as develop confidence and a love for writing.
Handwriting is taught in short daily sessions through specific modelling following our school policy and whole school progression grid. Upon starting our school, children begin forming patterns and then letters through printing. They begin learning cursive in Y2 with an expectation of beginning to join at the beginning of KS2. Therefore, by the time children leave Eastry, we aim for them to be able to write neatly in a legible, joined script.
Spellings are taught discretely in daily lessons through EdShed. Children take part in etymology and morphology activities to help understand how the words are made up and practise spelling the words in different ways with the aim to be able to spell them accurately within their writing. Children in KS1 will also learn to spell words within their daily Read Write Inc. sessions.
Impact
In our school, we aspire for our pupils to achieve success within writing, whatever their ability. We want them to be inspired to write, enjoy writing and ultimately see themselves as writers. With our carefully planned curriculum and consistent approach across the school, we aim for our children to be skilled at writing for different audiences and purposes and for our children to take pride in their presentation, spell words correctly and write grammatically correctly. Outcomes will be visible in English books as well as learning journals and wider curriculum learning.
Together we aim for the percentage of pupils working at age related expectations to be in line or better than national standards. Equally, we aim for the percentage of pupils working at greater depth to be in line or better than national standards.