Intent

At St. Andrew the Apostle, we are all writers! Writing is an essential part of our curriculum offer.  Our intent is to ignite a passion for writing within all learners. Our desire is that children are able to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We have a plethora of wonderful opportunities to inspire pupils, which ensure they enjoy writing and learn to love it. Excellent teaching and support, along with a myriad of techniques including The Write Stuff, Power of Reading and Film lessons, guarantee children are given every chance to succeed.

Implementation

In EYFS pupils learn the correct pencil grip and begin to form letters, words and sentences. We develop writing through a talk for writing approach, applying Ros Wilson’s phrase, “If they can’t say it, they can’t write it.”

We explicitly teach cursive handwriting daily and award pen licences each week to pupils who can prove they can write cursively, neatly and legibly across a range of subjects and genres. Writing depends on fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy handwriting and we explicitly encourage children to take pride in their handwriting.

Our teaching will develop the confidence of pupils through two dimensions: transcription and composition.  Our pupils will be taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing so that they can produce pieces of work that they are proud of and we can celebrate this.

Impact

The impact of this implementation will result in our pupils becoming competent writers and feel a true sense of achievement. They will have a thorough understanding and appreciation of the importance of writing in the wider world and will be equipped to continue to build on their achievements into secondary school and later life with the ability to articulate and communicate ideas confidently.