English - Writing

Writing is an act of discovering what you think and what you believe. - Dan Pink

Intent

The ability to express ourselves in writing is a key life skill. Writing enables us to achieve our potential in school and beyond, communicate with other people and share our ideas. Whether we are applying for a job, writing a thank you letter, appealing a parking ticket or writing a bestselling novel, we all need to be able to write.

At St John’s, we want all children to leave our school able to write confidently, legibly and at speed with accurate spelling.

To become a confident writer, children need to learn and master numerous skills including handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation as well as thinking about what they want to write and making it interesting. At St John’s, we understand that this is challenging for children but it is important to us that they enjoy writing. We therefore try to provide them with as many interesting and engaging reasons to write as we can. These include writing tourist information leaflets for the Roman Baths, labels for exhibits in their Crime and Punishment museum and letters warning the headteacher that there is a dragon at large in the school.

Writing should be fun.

Implementation

Early Years

In Early Years, we use Drawing Club to encourage the children’s mark-making and support the development of emergent writing.
Several times each week, children complete Drawing Club based around that week’s focus story. This involves drawing the character and setting and exploring ‘I wonder’ questions.
The children are encouraged to add details to their drawings and talk to the adults about their drawings. As they become more confident with this, they begin to write words and captions in phonically plausible ways.

Pathways to Write

From Year 1 to Year 6, we use the Pathways to Write scheme to teach writing which teachers adapt as necessary to ensure that it meets the needs of their class.
Writing is based on high quality and diverse picture books and children write for a wide range of purposes and audiences.
The scheme uses the mastery approach to teach and embed vocabulary and grammar.
There is a progression document for all genres of writing.
All writing is modelled, from short daily writing exercises to longer writes. We use WAGOLLs across the school and children identify and discuss features of these that they can use in their own writing.
Every unit of writing has a clear Learning Journey so that children understand how the work they do lesson by lesson is giving them the skills and knowledge they need to achieve the writing outcome at the end of the unit.
Across each unit, children complete regular pieces of short burst writing which builds to planning and writing a longer piece of independent writing.
From Years 1 to 6, children follow the same editing and improving process. At the end of a unit, specific lessons are devoted to this process. Teachers use visualisers to help children understand how to edit their work and children work with their peers during the editing process. All editing is done in purple pen.
Children use Working Walls, Helping Hands folders and other individualised scaffolds to support their writing. They are encouraged to use these independently.

Grammar
Grammar is taught as an integral part of our English lessons and children are expected to apply the grammar and punctuation they have learned in their writing across the curriculum.
We use a Grammar progression document to ensure that all skills are covered.
Children are given regular retrieval practice of their grammar and punctuation skills through the mastery approach, lesson starters and Writing4Accuracy in which, three times a week, teachers dictate a sentence which practices previously taught grammar, punctuation and spelling rules.

Handwriting
We are in the process of introducing the Unlocking Letters and Sounds handwriting scheme across the school.
Handwriting is explicitly taught in Early Years and Key Stage 1. At Key Stage 2, all classes start the year with a series of lessons of handwriting practice.
Children write in pencil until they are able to write neatly and join their writing consistently. They are then given a pen licence.
Until children have their pen licence, they complete their English in a handwriting book with guide lines.
When children struggle with their handwriting, they are given additional support including pencil grips and interventions including Bubble Writing.
Some children in Upper Key Stage 2 who struggle to write despite interventions and support, are able to use iPads for longer pieces of writing. These children participate in a touch typing intervention to help them type more quickly.
At the start of the year, the speed of children’s writing is assessed and recorded.
Spelling
At Key Stage 1, children learn to spell using Phonics and follow the Unlocking Letters and Sounds scheme.
When children enter Key Stage 2, Phonics is assessed for all children who did not pass the Phonics Screening Test and any others who are struggling to spell accurately. These children are given a Precision Phonics intervention to support them in learning any phonemes with which they are not yet confident.
At the start of Key Stage 2, all children are tested on the spelling of the Common Exception Words. The results of this test are used to provide additional individualised support in learning to spell these words.
Across Key Stage 2, children are explicitly taught Spelling in ability-based classes for 40 minutes a week.
For children who are confident with their Phonics, these lessons follow the Spelling Shed scheme. For children who are struggling with their Phonics, these lessons focus on a revision of phonemes and graphemes and how to segment to spell.
Children in Key Stage 1 and 2 are expected to complete weekly homework assignments on Spelling Shed which are linked to their learning in school.
In order to encourage regular spelling practice, at our weekly Celebration Service, effort on Spelling Shed is recognised by the award of Certificates and the Spell-osaurus and Mini Spell – osaurus.
At the start of every English lesson, children are required to write 5 words from their year group’s National Curriculum Spelling List or the List for the preceding 2 years. These words are written on the board and repeated across the week with the expectation that they are spelled correctly. This requirement is adapted for any SEN children in the class.
Once a week, teachers identify 5 incorrect spellings in a piece of work for every child. These focus on common exception words and spelling patterns that have been taught. Children are given time at the start of an English lesson to correct these spellings. This requirement is adapted for any SEN children in the class.
All Year 3 children and any children in the Phonics Spelling class have individual Phonics Word Mats which they are expected to use independently to support their spelling in class. We also have ABC Spelling Dictionaries which children who struggle to spell are taught to use when editing their work.

Writing across the Curriculum

Children are expected to apply the skills that they have learned in their English lessons in their work across the curriculum.
Lessons outside English will often require children to produce a short written record of their learning such as describing the features they like in a particular artist’s work or summarising their learning on sustainable energy sources in Geography.
Occasionally, children will produce longer pieces of writing in other curriculum subjects including writing a double page spread on the features of our local churches in RE, writing a tourist information leaflet for the Roman Baths in History and recording experiments in Science.

Impact

Children across the school enjoy writing and a large number of them choose to enter their stories in the BBC 500 words competition. They also love sharing their writing with their younger peers.
High quality writing can be seen on displays around the school which demonstrate a clear progression in skills.
In 2024, 96% of children achieved the Expected Standard for Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation at the end of Key Stage 2 with 35% of the cohort working at a higher level. 76% of children met the Expected Standard in Writing with 11% of them working at a higher level.

Assessment

Teachers across the school are involved in Moderation sessions both in school and with colleagues from the Bath and Wells MAT.
Writing is assessed six times a year. Children complete a piece of independent writing at the end of a unit and this is assessed using the Bath and Wells MAT Teacher Assessment Framework.
Results are recorded for individual children but can also be seen across a cohort. The data from these assessments is then discussed at termly Pupil Progress Meetings and is used to plan cohort wide learning and individual interventions.
The School English Lead, supported by the SLT, undertakes regular monitoring of writing across the school using Learning Walks, Pupil Voice and Book Looks. Feedback from this monitoring is shared with teachers.