Writing

Our vision

At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, we intend to provide an aspirational writing curriculum which is accessible to all children from EYFS through to Year 6, inspiring everyone to REACH through Faith, Hope and Love. We deliver lessons that are engaging, aspirational and well-resourced to ensure all children, including those with FSM, EAL, PP and SEND, are able to access learning and achieve success. From the earliest stages, we prioritise strong foundations in language, communication and early reading, which are progressively built upon to develop fluency, creativity and independence in writing. Teaching is evidence-informed, using Teaching WalkThrus to model, practise and apply learning in clear, manageable steps, alongside adaptive teaching strategies to scaffold and support all learners. Through high expectations, children develop resilience and strive for excellence, working both independently and collaboratively. We are dedicated to fostering a love of writing and ensuring that all children become highly competent and confident writers by the end of their primary journey. By providing meaningful writing opportunities linked to real-life experiences, Catholic values and the wider curriculum, children recognise the importance and power of writing in the wider world, preparing them for future learning and a successful transition into secondary school.

We use a wide variety of experiences, aspirational and quality texts and adapted resources to motivate and inspire our children all following a scaffolded approach using styles from a range of English schools of thought – Talk for Writing and Big Write.

What does English look like at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School?

All pupils receive a daily English lesson (except on REACH Friday’s).

The fiction and non-fiction journey/process looks like this:

1. Exploring text type – text marking.
2. Retell
3. Big write – initial assessment piece
4. VCOP session
5. VCOP session
6. Big write – VCOP assessment opportunity
7. Innovation – planning
8. Writing phase – shared/modelled
9. Writing phase – shared/modelled
10. Purple Write assessment piece – independently completed after a short break

Supporting your child to write at home

 Early writing activities:

• Encourage children to look for print in their environment - road signs, food packets, shops etc.
• Try activities to develop fine motor skills e.g. cutting, using playdough, tracing, using tweezers or clothes pegs to pick things up.
• Use a chalkboard to write family messages on.
• Make labels for things around the house.
• Write a shopping list - real or imaginary! Or any kind of list.
• Letter formation - practise forming letters using paint, in sand, using playdough or pastry.
• Let your child write their own Christmas cards or birthday cards to people.
• Use magnetic letters - your child can leave you a message on the fridge.
• Encourage and praise early squiggles which show your child is beginning to understand writing.

Improving writers:

• Write party invitations
• Encourage children to write thank you letters after birthdays and Christmas.
• Write postcards when on holiday.
• Write simple sentences from pictures (Pobble is a really good website for this!)
• Email or write a letter to a family member or friend.
• Write short stories involving real life experiences.
• Write an information leaflet about something they find interesting e.g. a favourite sport, dinosaurs etc.
• Ask them to correct a sentence you have written with a deliberate mistake e.g. a spelling mistake or missing punctuation.

More confident writers:

• Write a diary.
• Write a story for a younger family member, in the style of their favourite author.
• Write a holiday journal.
• Write a recipe or instruction manual e.g. how to play a game.
• Write to the local newspaper about an issue they feel strongly about.
• Look out for writing competitions! e.g. Radio 2's 500 word story competition.
• Encourage them to proof read and edit their writing (could be homework) once they have finished. Ask them to check that spelling, punctuation and grammar is accurate.