English
Intent
At our primary school, we are dedicated to nurturing confident, capable, and passionate writers who can articulate their thoughts and ideas with clarity and creativity. Our writing curriculum is thoughtfully designed with a carefully sequenced progression of skills in spelling, grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, and composition. This structured approach ensures that students build a solid foundation at each stage, enabling them to develop increasingly complex writing abilities over time.
We emphasize a balance between technical accuracy and creative expression, encouraging students to explore a wide range of writing styles, including narrative, persuasive, informative, and descriptive texts. Through engaging, purposeful activities, we foster critical thinking and imagination, helping students to find their unique voice.
The writing learning journey is visually represented through working walls in each classroom, allowing pupils to continually reference their previous learning. These working walls clearly demonstrate how lesson sequences build on prior knowledge and skills, supporting students as they transfer what they have learned into a variety of text types.
Our supportive and inclusive learning environment motivates every child to take risks, revise their work, and grow as communicators, preparing them to meet future academic challenges and confidently express themselves in everyday life.
Implementation
Writing is taught through a range of motivating and varied stimuli, including books, film clips, music videos, visiting speakers, and real-life experiences. Pupils develop key, year-appropriate skills through targeted lessons that build progressively toward a culminating unit task, enabling them to demonstrate their writing skills and effectively use the vocabulary and techniques acquired.
Learners are supported to review and improve their work by responding to specific feedback from both teachers and classmates, fostering self-reflection and critical thinking. They are encouraged to apply their writing skills consistently across the entire curriculum.
Additionally, showcase opportunities are integrated within foundation subjects to help pupils confidently transfer and apply their writing skills in different contexts, reinforcing their learning and embedding knowledge in their long-term memory.
English lesson structure
Handwriting practice will begin each skills lesson, following the school’s ‘Letter Join’ scheme of work. Pupils will then focus on developing a specific skill aimed at improving sentence structure. These skills are aligned with the school’s long-term plan for genre coverage, and whenever possible, activities will be connected to the current genre.
Following this, pupils will have the chance to challenge themselves by applying the skill they have learned within the context of the genre they are studying.
Handwriting
Teachers will follow the Letter-join handwriting scheme, delivering handwriting lessons daily. Pupils who need additional support with their handwriting will receive targeted interventions, such as teaching assistant support or extra modelling demonstrated in their books.
Spelling
Over the course of the year, children will learn spelling rules aligned with the national curriculum. Each week, the rule will be introduced at the start of the week, and pupils will practise their spelling words daily in preparation for a spelling test on Friday.
Impact
Our primary writing curriculum equips pupils with the essential skills and confidence to express themselves clearly and creatively across a range of text types. Through carefully sequenced lessons and continuous practice, pupils develop strong spelling, grammar, punctuation, and composition abilities. They become proficient in editing and refining their work, demonstrating resilience and a growth mindset. The curriculum fosters transferable writing skills that pupils apply confidently across all subjects, ensuring their progress is sustained and knowledge is deeply embedded. As a result, pupils leave primary school as capable, motivated writers ready for the next stage of their education.