Intent: 

Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy Counts to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations. Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and purpose. Through the use of high-quality, vocabulary-rich texts, we provide exciting and meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature and taught to craft their writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as regular opportunities for editing. We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly before writing them down. Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic writers, ready for the next stage of their education.

Implementation:  

Ready Steady Write empowers teachers to provide high-quality teaching of writing through high-quality literature. These detailed units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities within and across the curriculum. They provide:

• Clear sequential Episodes of Learning

• Vocabulary learning and contextualised spelling, grammar and punctuation

• Wider reading for the wider curriculum

• Example Texts linked to writing outcomes

• A wealth of supporting resource

Impact:

Assessment in writing is ongoing throughout every lesson. This allows teachers to adapt their planning in order to target pupils for support, as well as ensure that all children are challenged appropriately. Children are given regular opportunities to edit and improve their own writing. Independent writing is moderated regularly as a staff.  

Handwriting

The children need to learn the correct way to form letters so that they can go on to join up their letters as they get older. In Reception, letter formation is taught through Set 1 of RWI phonics, in which the children learn short rhymes and have picture prompts to help them remember the formation (please find these picture prompts and rhymes attached below). We use the Martin Harvey Scheme for handwriting throughout school, which includes using prompts with the children to prepare them to write: 

• BBC - Bottom Back in Chair
• TNT - Tummy Near Table
• Six feet, two hands - the feet of the chair and child plus one hand to write with and one to hold the page still. 

Effective activities for strengthening hand muscles used in school are cutting and sticking activities, playing with plasticine and using clothes pegs. Opportunities for celebrating handwriting are encouraged to further engage and motivate pupils to be proud of their presentation.

Useful Websites

https://www.literacycounts.co.uk/ready-steady-write

Oak Academy's website full of writing lessons and follow-up activities - https://classroom.thenational.academy/subjects-by-key-stage

BBC Bitesize have many revision videos and games on KS1 and KS2 English and Grammar - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zgkw2hv