Writing
You can see details of the national curriculum for English here.
At St Anne’s, we intend to create confident, passionate and enthusiastic writers who are equipped with the skills and flair to express themselves fluently using the written word. Our children are given the opportunity to explore a wide range of exciting, engaging and diverse texts to stimulate writing across a variety of genres. All tasks are made accessible for all children. Therefore, children are able to write for a range of audiences with purpose and intent, building on their prior knowledge to produce quality writing that showcases not only their technical skills, but their creativity and passions too.
We take a topic-based approach at St Anne’s, instilling high expectations in writing across our curriculum, to ensure that children are applying what they have learnt in every piece of writing that they complete. This approach allows our children the opportunity to explore genres in different contexts as well as applying their skills across the curriculum and immersing themselves in rich, varied and high-level vocabulary.
Writing is celebrated as an integral part of all learning at St Anne’s and children are encouraged to share their writing with their peers, as well as with their parents and adults in school. This is particularly highlighted during events such as Remembrance Day, World Book Day, Grandparents’ Week and liturgies.
Spelling, grammar and punctuation are key aspects of the writing curriculum, and are taught throughout St Anne’s. In EYFS and Key Stage 1, spelling is taught in conjunction with our phonics scheme, Rising Stars, and children also focus on common exception words and the year group word lists from the National Curriculum each week.
Handwriting is taught both discreetly and within phonics and writing lessons. Children begin printing their letters in Reception, and progress onto pre-cursive and then cursive as they move through Years 2 – 6.
In Key Stage 2, we follow the Spelling Shed spelling scheme daily, which takes a phonics-based approach to whole class spelling; building on the phonic skills that the children acquire in Key Stage 1 and applying these skills to the spelling rules and word lists found in the National Curriculum.
Children across St Anne’s are supported in applying spelling knowledge across their writing through their daily lessons and strategies taught within these lessons.