(including spelling and handwriting)

Intent

At Stokenham Area Primary School, every child will leave us as a confident, capable writer who enjoys putting their ideas into words and knows that what they write matters. We believe writing is one of the most powerful tools children have for thinking, for creativity and for making themselves understood. It's how they make sense of what they learn, express who they are and reach an audience beyond the classroom. As they move through the school, children write with increasing control and imagination, drawing on a rich and growing vocabulary and a secure grasp of grammar to write purposefully for a wide range of audiences. They leave us as fluent, legible and genuinely confident writers, ready for the next stage of their education.

Everything we do in writing is underpinned by our federation values and these shape the kind of writers and thinkers we want our children to become.

Aspiration –  We choose rich, ambitious texts and expect all children to reach for high-quality vocabulary and sentence structures in their own writing, not just the ones they find easiest.

Inclusion  –   Every child is a writer. Teaching is carefully adapted so that all children are scaffolded to succeed and those ready for greater depth are consistently challenged.

Diversity – The books and authors we choose reflect a wide range of voices, cultures and experiences so that every child can see themselves in what they read and write about the world with understanding and empathy.

Collaboration – Writing is developed through oral rehearsal, paired and group discussion, and modelled and shared writing, before children are asked to write independently. Our teachers plan and moderate writing together, sharing expertise across our schools.

Enrichment  –  Children write for real purposes and real audiences wherever possible and are encouraged to see writing as something to be proud of and to enjoy.

Implementation

We apply our wider pedagogy to the teaching of handwriting, spelling and writing. This is built on evidence-informed practice and mastery-style teaching, which is underpinned by Rosenshine's ‘Principles of Instruction’. Lessons include regular review and retrieval, new material introduced in small steps, high-quality modelling, guided and independent practice and frequent checks for understanding. Questioning and assessment for learning run through every lesson and children are encouraged to discuss and justify their thinking. Adaptive teaching is embedded across all lessons. Teachers quickly identify children who are at risk of falling behind. They plan scaffolding and targeted support for children who need it, working closely with the SENDCo, parents and teaching assistants, to ensure that any gaps in children’s knowledge are filled and that they can access new learning with confidence. Higher-attaining children are also consistently challenged to apply their skills in more sophisticated ways.

Handwriting

In EYFS and Key Stage 1, handwriting is taught through Little Wandle. In Reception, children begin developing their fine motor skills and pencil grip by starting with pre-writing patterns and strokes before moving on to lower-case letters and capital letters. Children continue to focus on correct letter formation in Year 1 with a growing focus on consistency, size and orientation together with the correct placement of capital letters and formation of digits. Once unjoined letters are secure and consistent, children in Year 2 move on to joining letters. In KS2, the children follow the Nelson Handwriting scheme that develops joined, cursive handwriting in clear, progressive stages, building on the letter formation already secured through Little Wandle. It focuses on consistency, fluency and legibility to help children write at speed without losing accuracy so that handwriting becomes automatic and no longer gets in the way of composing and expressing their ideas.

Spelling

In EYFS and Key Stage 1, spelling is taught through Little Wandle, which builds directly on children's phonic knowledge. Children in Reception and Year 1 learn to spell through their daily phonics lessons; in Year 2, they move through a Phase 5 review and a ‘Bridge to Spelling’ unit before beginning the Little Wandle Year 2 spelling programme, which teaches full National Curriculum coverage and introduces children to thinking about etymology and morphology, as well as phonics, when they spell.

In Key Stage 2, spelling is taught through Literacy Tree's Spelling Seeds, which links spelling rules and patterns to the vocabulary found within our Writing Roots texts so that spelling is taught in a meaningful context and applied directly within children's wider writing.

Writing

In Reception, the foundations of writing are laid through phonics and the EYFS areas of Communication and Language, and Literacy. Writing opportunities are balanced between taught sessions and play-based experiences, which develop children's language, their understanding of text structures, a love of reading, and early handwriting skills, alongside the phonetic knowledge required to build transcription skills.

Literacy Tree's Writing Roots, a book-based approach that immerses children in high-quality, diverse literature, is used for taught sessions in every year group from Reception to Year 6. It maps clear progression in composition, grammar, punctuation and vocabulary.

Each unit is built around a high-quality core text, chosen to engage and challenge pupils and to reflect a diverse range of authors, cultures and experiences. Within each unit, children encounter texts by both reading as a reader and as a writer. They explore meaning, vocabulary and character and examine how the author has crafted the text for effect. This ‘Teach Through a Text’ approach reduces cognitive load by teaching grammar, vocabulary and sentence construction in context, rather than as abstract, stand-alone content and builds in regular opportunities for oral rehearsal so that children talk through and rehearse their ideas before they write them down.

Lessons follow a consistent sequence: immersion in the text, exploration of vocabulary and language choices, shared and guided practice and independent application. Short-burst writing tasks give pupils the chance to practise specific skills, such as a sentence type, a punctuation feature or a piece of descriptive language, before applying them within longer, purposeful pieces of writing for a range of audiences.

Impact

The impact of our writing curriculum will be seen in confident, capable writers who meet or exceed, age-related expectations. Children will write fluently and accurately for a wide range of purposes and audiences, choosing vocabulary, sentence structures and punctuation with increasing precision and confidence. They will spell accurately, present their work with pride and take ownership of their own writing. Outcomes at the end of each phase will be in line with or above national expectations.

We track each child’s progress termly, year-on-year, from their starting points. We use pupil voice, book scrutiny, learning walks, moderation across the federation, review of planning and discussions with staff to inform our ongoing cycle of monitoring, evaluation and review. Should any aspect of our writing curriculum fail to deliver the outcomes we expect, we respond at once, reviewing and adapting our approach to prevent standards from slipping.