Intent 

"Every child as a writer for life"

Our Writing curriculum at Millbrook Primary School and Nursery is designed to ensure that pupils leave school with the key skills that will enable them to succeed in further education and wider life. We aim to ensure that every child who passes through our school is a ‘writer for life’ by instilling a love for the creativity and freedom that the subject of writing contains.

We also intend to create writers who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing, and enable pupils to confidently use the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling.

Implementation

Our curriculum offer is derived from the Early Years Statutory Framework and the National Curriculum, with progression maps supporting the coverage for each year group and providing teachers with a pathway for the learning journey of their class in writing. The curriculum offer is also supported by Read, Write Inc. and Nelson Handwriting schemes. Read, Write Inc., which supports our reading curriculum, is a systematic, synthetic phonics programme that is validated by the Department for Education. The programme ensures that pupils can apply the phonics code required for them to become confident, successful writers.

Early Years Foundation Stage

The bespoke Early Years curriculum offer provides all children with rich mark-making and writing opportunities through child-initiated and adult-focused activities. In Nursery, all children participate in Dough Disco and Squiggle while you Wiggle to improve gross and fine motor skills which enables children to form pattern marks that lead progressively into letter formation, taught, and structured through the Read, Write Inc. programme. In Reception, writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition of sounds that they have been previously taught – articulating their ideas and structuring them through spoken language, before transferring to print (writing process). A teacher-led handwriting session is taught once per day using the Nelson Handwriting scheme. This enables children to develop a legible handwriting to meet curriculum expectations.

Key Stage 1 and 2

Each half-term, a year group has a focus writing text which is selected from school’s literature spine. This text is a stimulus, giving rise to two extended pieces of writing each half term. During this period, pupils build up their knowledge of genre, punctuation and grammar relative to the writing topic, before completing their extended write. This is typically delivered across a week of learning to give pupils time to draft, edit and redraft.

Elements such as spoken language and reading skills are interwoven into the build-up period; pupils explore and grow their understanding of the text and appreciation for written conventions before expressing these independently in their write.

As the school has a high proportion of pupils with English as an additional language, vocabulary is key to the learning of the pupils at Millbrook. Writing lessons feature exploration and discussion of vocabulary for a purpose. Equally, foundation subjects feature the understanding and application of vocabulary as a starter every session. In doing so, pupils are consistently and effectively acquiring and using new language every day.

Beyond writing lessons, written outcomes are a feature across the curriculum. These give pupils further opportunities to understand, remember and apply their learning from writing sessions. For example, Year 6 write diary entries from the perspective of Cleopatra or Julius Caesar whilst learning about Ancient Egypt in History. This is not only used as an assessment of learning for history but provides pupils with an opportunity to further explore the genre of a diary entry which was covered explicitly.

Handwriting

The aim of Millbrook Primary School and Nursery is that every child should be enabled to develop a fluent, legible style of handwriting. Capital and lower-case letters should be used appropriately, and the letter size should be consistent. As a school, we will provide opportunities for children to develop, practice and perfect skills, whilst supporting any child experiencing difficulty through targeted activities.

As a school, we use complementary schemes that allow pupils to develop their handwriting as they progress through school. During Read Write Inc. sessions delivered across EYFS and KS1, the Read Write Inc. handwriting scheme is followed. When pupils move into KS2, the Nelson Handwriting Scheme is followed and pupils are encouraged to explore and develop their own unique handwriting style. Handwriting is taught for 15 minutes at least 3 times a week across school. Depending on setting, it is common that handwriting is taught more frequently than this.

Handwriting is a movement skill, which requires all adults to correctly model this to pupils at all stages across school. At all times, adults are expected to model the correct formation of letters and numbers in accordance with the expectations of the school in order to provide consistency for pupils across all age ranges.

Impact 

An education in writing provides pupils with skills for both further education and life, and the impact of our Writing curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments.

Children will make good progress from their own personal starting points. By the end of Year Six they will be able to write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. Our children will acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of the written word.

Most importantly, pupils will develop a love of writing and be well equipped for the rest of their education.