Intent 

From the moment children join our school we will consider them writers whatever their stage of development. We want children to write for pleasure and we will seek to nurture a fascination for language and words in particular.

We intend to give all children the technical skills necessary to achieve this as quickly as possible. We will also introduce our Year 2 pupils to skills such as proof-reading and editing as a necessary part of the writing process too

Implementation

Our learning in English is always based around a high-quality and inspiring book.

 

Our writing sequence

Our writing sequence starts with immersion to help engage and excite our writers. This could be through drama, exploration of the text or a hands-on activity. 

Our writing sequence continues with a focus on SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) or sentence construction. This part of the sequence is direct teaching from the National Curriculum.

Once a new SPaG or sentence construction skill has been learnt or reviewed, sentence stacking allows lessons to be broken up into small manageable chunks with a focus on high-quality modelling and application of the focus skill. In KS1, we regularly go back to the SPaG/Sentence construction part of our writing sequence before moving onto the planning stage. This allows a number of writing skills to be taught and reviewed. 

The final steps in our writing sequence are planning and write. These two steps give our writers the opportunity to be inspired by our class text to plan and innovate their own version of part of the story. 

 

Handwriting 

To ensure that the technical skills of writing are acquired and developed, all year groups have handwriting sessions at least once a week. By the end of Year Two, most children have learnt a fluent cursive handwriting style.

 

Spellings

Spelling at West Leigh is taught through daily discrete lessons. Our school follows the Unlocking Letters and Sounds Phonics programme.  Spelling patterns, often linked to grammar, are taught in year 2. All year groups also learn high frequency words and common exception words. 

 

Impact

By the time West Leigh children leave Key Stage 1, they will have made good progress from their own starting point and they will have more stamina. They will be able to encode their language with confidence meaning they are better able to focus on other aspects of writing such as choice of language and features of genre. Many will have developed a love of writing to prepare them for KS2 and beyond.