English Writing

Writing at Blandford St Mary CE Primary School  

Writing Intent Statement

At Blandford St Mary Primary School we believe that all children should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. 

We want all children, regardless of ability, to have the opportunity to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and to be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they have learnt throughout their time at Blandford St Mary. As a result, all children will be able to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.

All good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. 

The belief of all staff at Blandford St Mary is that every child is encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, by developing a cursive, joined, handwriting style from year 1 onwards.

Implementation

We teach English as whole class lessons, so that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Within lessons, teachers plan for targeted support for all children in order for them to achieve and produce writing which is to the best of their ability.

Opportunities are provided for children to extend their writing in a variety of ways, including through showing greater control, a deeper understanding of the impact that their writing has on the reader and by using a higher level of vocabulary and grammar features. 

Through careful planning, we teach our children to progress from early writer stage to novice and growing expertise writers by delivering units of work that develop children’s composition and transcription. Composition includes skills such as word choice, sentence structure, editing and revising; transcription focuses on spelling, handwriting and punctuation.  Such skills intertwine to develop competent writers.

Each unit will focus on a small number of key skills.
First, skills are explicitly taught and their use is highlighted in a model text.  
Next, children practise and apply the skills in their writing. 
Finally, children apply the knowledge and skills learnt in a final sustained piece of writing.

Where appropriate, teachers utilise the Talk for Writing approach.  In doing so, children will study and learn from a quality piece of writing, and will imitate and innovate this in their writing.

Throughout the writing units, teachers will provide daily verbal feedback to support children in areas of strength and areas that need to be developed further, culminating in an independent piece of writing placing the children as sole creators.

Impact

Our core aim is that all children at Blandford St Mary Primary school will enjoy writing across a range of genres and that children of all abilities will be able to succeed in all English lessons because learning will be engaging and appropriately scaffolded.