St Mary's Catholic Primary School

Writing

At St Mary’s, the teaching of Writing is focused around high-quality texts which stimulate children’s imaginations and creativity. We aim to develop their knowledge, vocabulary and showcase effective writing skills and techniques which they can identify and ‘magpie’ for use in their own writing. Across the school, we use books and teaching sequences from The Literacy Tree. Writing tasks are linked to these texts and build up to a final ‘extended piece’ of writing in a particular genre. Wherever possible, these final pieces are written for a real audience and purpose. 

 

Children spend time analysing effective examples of the genre they are working on as well as practising the specific skills required. We embed the teaching of grammar and punctuation through the texts and genres studied. Children are also encouraged to use their oracy skills before writing and we encourage the oral rehearsal of sentence structures prior to transcription. We aim to develop cross-curricular links wherever possible and ensure that our texts are diverse in order to represent a variety of cultures. 

 

We celebrate handwriting achievements in our Celebration Assembly. Children receive their pen licence certificates and pens which they can then use within their work. Where possible, children are also encouraged to enter writing competitions – such as Young Writers – hosted by Wimbledon Bookfest. Year groups respond creatively to an open theme which is then judged externally. Throughout the years, we have been proud to have had some of our wonderful St. Mary’s writers published in a range of Young Writers anthologies!

 

Handwriting 

 

We understand that children need to be confident in the mechanics of writing before their working memory can be freed up to develop the content and ‘flair’ of writing. Therefore, as soon as children are able to form most letters correctly and have a good pencil grip, we teach a fluent and legible handwriting style using the ‘Letterjoin’ programme consistently across the school.

Pen licences are usually awarded in Years 4, 5 and 6 when children have had more of an opportunity to develop their own handwriting style.

 

In order to receive a pen licence, the following criteria must be evidenced in books:

• Joined consistently (every letter, except capital letters, must flow into the next without gaps)
• Neat and legible writing with letter shapes formed correctly.
• On the line and appropriately spaced.

 

Teachers discuss the child’s work with the Writing Lead and are then given feedback on strengths. In addition to this, if children still need to develop their handwriting further then these points are shared with the Class Teacher. Pupils are then given this feedback.

The National Curriculum states that pupils should be taught to ‘use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined’.

By the end of KS2, the National Curriculum guidelines state that children should have developed fluent joined-up writing, written in the appropriate way for different contexts. To be working at ‘the expected standard’, children have to ‘maintain legibility in joined handwriting’ when writing at speed.

 

Spelling

We encourage children to ‘have a go’ at writing as soon as possible and to use their phonics skills and knowledge to spell. We use the Twinkl Spelling scheme in Key Stages 1 and 2 to teach a range of words including those which are classed as ‘statutory’ under the National Curriculum.

 

Additionally, children learn the spellings of the ‘common exception words’ relevant to their year group. Common exception words are words where the usual spelling rule doesn't apply. Across the years, children will encounter unfamiliar spelling or sound patterns. Their phonics knowledge may not always necessarily help them to sound out and read the word. Examples of common exception words are "sugar", "improve", "climb" and "because".