Sherwood Park Primary School

‘Every child has an enquiring mind about the world and their place in it.’

At Sherwood Park, we believe that all children have the potential to become great writers, able to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others. Our aim is to inspire a love of writing through exposure to exciting, stimulating texts, rich vocabulary and meaningful writing experiences that ensure the progressive development of knowledge and skills, alongside an appreciation of our rich and varied language heritage.

As we develop our writing curriculum, Key Stage 1 and Year 3 (during the Autumn term) will continue to follow our established Plan, Draft, Write process (Immersion, Imitation, Innovation and Invention). This provides continuity as pupils build secure writing foundations before Year 3 transitions to Writer's Toolbox, which becomes the core writing approach across Key Stage 2.

Intent

We aim for all children to:

• Develop a love of writing and take pride in their accomplishments.
• Acquire a wide vocabulary and secure understanding of grammar, sentence construction and text structure.
• Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting language and style to suit a range of purposes and audiences.
• Recognise the importance of speaking and listening as essential tools for developing writing skills and participating fully as members of society.
• Develop stamina for writing that is fluent, purposeful and legible.
• Become increasingly independent writers who can reflect on, edit and improve their own work.

Implementation

We will achieve this through:

• Carefully chosen fiction and non-fiction texts, engaging resources and visual literacy that inspire and motivate all children to write.
• Developing secure foundations in phonics, spelling, handwriting and oral language from the earliest opportunity.
• A carefully sequenced curriculum that progressively builds knowledge and skills in line with the National Curriculum (2014).
• Key Stage 1 and Year 3 (Autumn term) following our Plan, Draft, Write sequence through Immersion, Imitation, Innovation and Invention, providing a structured approach to developing ideas before independent writing.
• Writer's Toolbox as the core writing approach from Year 3 (Spring term onwards) and across the rest of Key Stage 2, explicitly teaching sentence construction, sentence fluency, paragraph organisation and writing craft through a shared language across year groups.
• A structured writing sequence that provides opportunities for teachers to model writing, pupils to practise new skills and children to apply these independently in purposeful writing tasks.
• Discrete teaching of grammar and punctuation that is immediately applied within meaningful writing.
• Regular opportunities for pupils to rehearse ideas through speaking and listening before writing.
• Time for children to plan, draft, edit and improve their writing, developing increasing independence in the editing process.
• Immediate feedback, teacher conferencing and, in KS2, Writer's Toolbox formative feedback to identify next steps and support continuous improvement.
• Discrete spelling and handwriting sessions that support fluent transcription skills.
• Opportunities for children to publish and celebrate their writing through displays, performances and wider audiences.

Impact

The impact of our writing curriculum is demonstrated through confident, enthusiastic writers who can communicate effectively across the curriculum.

We expect that:

• More children achieve age-related expectations and fulfil their potential by the end of each academic year.
• Children produce a balanced range of high-quality fiction and non-fiction writing using varied and engaging stimuli.
• Writing books reflect consistently high expectations and set the standard for presentation and quality across the wider curriculum.
• Children demonstrate increased confidence in discussing their writing choices using shared writing vocabulary.
• Pupils independently edit and improve their work, showing growing ownership of the writing process.
• Children develop a genuine interest in writing and understand the value it has in their education, future learning and everyday life.