At Brierley Forest Primary and Nursery School, we aim to provide our children with the necessary skills to develop their knowledge and wider experiences.  We recognise that reading and writing are fundamental parts of lifelong learning and therefore our staff strive to promote these skills in everything that they do.

Within English, children will develop their oracy skills, learn how to read and expand their vocabulary, developing and applying their knowledge, skills and understanding to writing across the curriculum.

The English Overviews (see attachments below) are used to support teaching and show progression and the links between our reading, writing and the wider curriculum. The reading spines are selected to support the wider curriculum and the diversity of our community, together with supporting children to learn about different cultures, geographically and historically. These are also linked to Grammarsaurus, which is the programme that we use to support our writing curriculum. 

Writing Intent

Our vision for writing is for children to leave Brierley Forest with the necessary skills to write for different purposes, which will help them in their next stage of education and community life. Through their resilience and perseverance, they will write with fluency, accuracy and enjoyment.

Research tells us that we should teach writing as a process to allow children to gain the necessary skills, knowledge and experience that allows them to write for a key purpose and audience. 

Writing can be broken down into two parts: 

• Transcription – the physical process of writing, for example: handwriting, spelling, punctuation;
• Composition – the generation of ideas, carefully selecting word choice and sentence length; the use of vocabulary and grammar for effect.

Teaching writing at Brierley Forest:

Skills for writing are taught every day at Brierley Forest. This may be as standalone lessons, or as part of the wider curriculum. From EYFS upwards, we are keen that children learn to write for different purposes and audiences, learning that writing doesn’t always include sitting at a table for a specific amount of time. In preparation for writing, children learn how to orally form cohesive sentences, before putting pencil to paper. Across the school, we use the Grammarsaurus Place Value Punctuation and Grammar programme, and from year 2 onwards, the Place Value of Spelling programme, which supports readiness for writing. EYFS and KS1 learn how to spell phonetically. Once secure in this, they then learn the morphology and etymology of words, which helps develop automaticity. 

In line with Transform Trust, and with the National Curriculum’s expectations for composition, we follow a five-stage process to the teaching of writing:

Engage stage: The teacher ‘hooks’ the children in through a stimulus (e.g. launch day, high-quality text, film clip etc). The purpose and audience for writing are clearly set.

Discover stage: Children are immersed in different texts relevant to their outcome; they analyse and explore the organisation and language features. Relevant grammar and vocabulary are taught and children have opportunities to ‘dabble’, allowing them to rehearse ideas and use appropriate language before committing to paper. To support with sentence construction, we use writing dictation, adapted from Teresa Heathcote's Writing Sequence.

Compose stage: Children are taught to plan effectively and encouraged to complete their first draft – guided and shared writing are used before independent practice.

Evaluate stage: Working together to read aloud writing helps the children to revise what they have written – this may mean adding or removing words or text to improve how it sounds. Children will edit grammar, punctuation and spelling and assess their writing against the year group outcomes and purpose.

Publish stage: Children produce a final piece of writing linked to their audience.

These stages take place over a number of weeks, the length depending on the outcome.

Writing Purpose

It is clear from research into raising standards in writing that having a clear purpose for writing is essential and that children should be aware of why they are writing from the outset. When chosen carefully, this is a fantastic way to engage children.

Michael Tidd suggested that writing opportunities in the classroom can be grouped into four key purposes: entertain, inform, discuss and persuade. The writing purposes for each year group can be found on the English Overviews.

Handwriting

From the early years, children understand the need for having a correct writing position, communicated to them via the 4Ps: Posture, Pencil, Paper, Pressure. Around school, you will hear teachers saying, "Perfect Writers" as they are recognising and reminding the children of the importance of these 4Ps. 

Learning how to form letters begins in the early years. Children will build their fine motor skills, drawing swirls, spirals and circles before applying these skills to letter formation. In EYFS and KS1, children will develop their knowledge of the correct letter formation through their phonics lessons. After this, the Letterjoin programme is used to learn to print and join letters, as well as forming accurate numerals. Handwriting is effectively modelled by all adults and the children practise daily. The expectation is that presentation is always neat and accurate across all subjects.