Writing

Writing at Widewell

Intent

Our writing curriculum is designed to be ambitious, engaging, and inspiring—equipping children with the tools they need to become confident communicators and capable, creative writers. We believe that writing is a powerful form of expression and a vital life skill, and we are committed to ensuring every child can write competently and with purpose across a range of genres, audiences, and contexts.

From their earliest mark-making to crafting polished pieces, we support children to develop accuracy, fluency, and independence in their writing. Through carefully structured teaching, meaningful contexts, and high-quality models, our pupils learn the essential foundational skills with a focus on oracy and transcription which then supports their development with grammar, vocabulary, and composition skills which underpin great writing.

Beyond technical proficiency, we nurture children’s ability to express their thoughts, ideas, and emotions—empowering them to find their voice and unlocking their imagination. We provide regular opportunities for writing that spark creativity, encourage individuality, and foster a genuine enjoyment of the writing process which are rooted in real life experiences planned carefully through writing hooks.

By writing for pleasure as well as purpose, our pupils build confidence, resilience, and a sense of ownership over their work. We aim to create a community of young authors who are proud of their writing and motivated to communicate effectively, now and in the future.

Ultimately, our intent is to develop skilled, inspired writers who are ready to succeed across the curriculum and beyond; able to connect with others through words and express themselves with clarity, creativity, and conviction.

The aims of teaching writing, as outlined in the National Curriculum, are to ensure that all pupils:

• Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for writing

• Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

Implementation

At Widewell, we know that all children can be successful in writing. In order to achieve this, our expectation is that through quality first teaching and a strong focus on securing foundational skills, all of our children will successfully access the learning. Pupils use their oracy skills from the beginning of their school journey at Widewell which is embedded through interactions with adults enabling them to develop their speech and control of spoken language.  These strong foundations support children to develop vocabulary banks which translates into their development as strong writers.  Pupils will discuss high quality models, orally rehearse sentences, discuss vocabulary and edit and improve their learning following discussion with their teachers and/or their peers as they move through our school and beyond.

We expect the vast majority of pupils to move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, for some children, we work collaboratively to identify individual needs in order to provide opportunities to consolidate their understanding through additional scaffolding (this could be through adult support or adapted work).

At Widewell, we start by identifying the language features and grammatical constructions that are needed for a particular genre. Pupils are provided with WAGOLLS (what a good one looks like) so that they are exposed to high quality models and can begin to understand what the outcome of a unit of learning will look like. We explicitly teach grammar as part of the writing process, which leads into shared writing, whereby pupils are shown how to apply what they have learnt through creating their own pieces of independent writing. Every writing unit culminates in a final draft of genre-specific writing, which is used to celebrate success and identify next steps in learning. Objectives are detailed in a medium-term plan to ensure that pupils are taught what they need to know to be successful in a progressive, logical way. Across a writing unit at Widewell, there are 3 clear stages: Immersion and Imitation, Innovation and Invention.  This approach is founded through Talk4Writing approached but also follows our Widewell learning model of 'I do, We do, You do', underpinned by the gradual release model.   

In EYFS, pupils are provided with a wealth of resources to develop their writing skills. Emergent writers can use various writing resources (chalk, paint, pens, pencils, water, and brushes) to practise making meaningful marks in both horizontal and vertical motions building the children's muscles and motor skills needed to develop them as capable writers in their transcription skills. Pupils can access these materials during continuous provision and use this to extend their learning opportunities and application through play. This is enhanced through the delivery of RWI Phonics sessions, in which pupils learn individual letter formation and how to hold and build sentences. Fine motor control activities are also provided in EYFS to ensure that pupils are ready for writing. 

In the Autumn Term of Year 1, pupils are predominantly taught writing through structured activities that enable children to write accurately and coherently, these activities include how to hold a sentence; build a sentence of their own; and how to edit sentences using their writing toolkits. Children also have lots of time to develop and share ideas through partner work, thinking out loud and orally rehearsing their sentences using a Talk4Writing model.

Children are given opportunities to reflect on their writing using their toolkits to ensure their foundational features are secure as well as checking that their writing reads for sense.  As children progress through their writing journey, they will be taught how to use their toolkits to ensure their work has the core components of a successful sentence/ piece of writing, i.e., capital letters, correct letter formation, finger spaces, and full stops through high-quality teacher models . The programme ensures that the core writing skills for Year 1, as outlined in the National Curriculum, are explicitly taught in a consistent, clear, and highly structured way, which supports the children in their early writing journey to write with confidence, accuracy, and coherency.

As pupils move through Year 1, they progress from learning how to write in secure sentences within short writing units, to immersed in genre-based writing units as detailed in our adapted LAT English Matrix. Our matrix recognises the importance of learning how to write fiction, non-fiction and poetry. As pupils progress through their time at Widewell, they will repeat genres which will allow for spaced learning and provide pupils with the opportunity to refine previously learnt skills and show an improved level of sophistication with their writing, whilst including age-specific toolkit expectations.  

For children who are not yet working at Year 1 expectations in writing, we provide bespoke learning through the use of our LAT Writing Milestones, which is supported by our Widewell Writing Journey. This approach has a carefully planned progression of skills and knowledge that our children should experience and secure in order to become competent writers.  Our milestones documents are designed in order to teach and enable practise of key foundational skills which move through a small-step, coherent journey from word to sentence level.  This provision is identified through targeted teacher assessment and is reviewed weekly to ensure and promote rapid progress for all children over time.  

To ensure that pupils are supported, challenged and ready to write extended pieces, pupils are provided with a range of challenges across a writing unit.  Depending on the stage of writing, challenges will be planned accordingly.  All challenges are planned at an appropriate level, along with any necessary scaffolds.  

At Widewell, we know that for children to be successful at spelling, a clear structure that consolidates and deepens children's understanding and independent application is needed. The Spelling Shed  programme is used in Years 2 to 6. This programme ensures that pupils are taught all the required objectives from the National Curriculum.  The Spelling Shed programme is taught regularly in addition to writing lessons. Content from these lessons will then be applied in their writing lessons. In writing lessons, pupils are supported in addressing misspelling in a way that is appropriate to their age or stage, with a focus on foundational skills and key words appropriate to their age e.g. red words, common exception words and statutory spellings. This progressive process of correcting spelling at Widewell aims to develop pupils’ independence and fluency in transcription.

At Widewell, we aim for pupils to be fluent, neat writers. In order for children to focus on the content of what they write, over time, pupils are taught how to write legibly and fluently so that the outcomes of their writing can be the focus. In EYFS and Year 1, pupils are taught how to form individual letter  shapes as part of their RWI phonics lessons as well as pupils being taught rhymes that support them in forming letters correctly. Pupils from EYFS to KS1 follow the RWI handwriting programme which supported regular letter formation whilst building fluency as writers.  Using assessment for learning, when appropriate, children in Year 2 are introduced to joining using diagonal and horizontal strokes in accordance with the national curriculum.  In KS2, children then develop onto our Widewell handwriting approach which initially focuses on securing  and embedding letter formation for all children before introducing and developing joining, helping children to develop their own fluent style of writing.  These lessons are taught 4 times a week and are embedded through all writing opportunities across the curriculum.  

Impact

Teachers will use a range of formative and summative assessment in writing to assess the children’s understanding and what they need to do next. The design and delivery, along with assessment of pupils’ learning ensures that pupils will always know more, understand more and therefore do more. During the lesson, through live marking, questioning and tasks, teachers will check that the children have understood the focus of the learning. The teachers and teaching assistants will assess the pupils’ achievements against the learning objective. Feedback will be provided to support pupils in making progress. In EYFS, feedback is given at the point of learning. In KS1, pupils will have good examples shared to the whole class and then address misconceptions through either discussion with their class teacher or by answering next steps which will always target securing foundational features first.  Pupils across the school are given time to respond to any feedback they have been given.

At the end of each writing unit, pupils complete an independent piece of writing which is marked against the LAT English Writing Assessment Tool which is linked to year group National Curriculum expectations. Teachers use this tool to inform future planning and provide next steps to pupils. Across-year group and across-school moderations aim to ensure accuracy and consistency in teacher assessments and take place termly. Children are able to show that their writing knowledge and skills are developing as they apply them to a wide range of genres in a confident and successful way regardless of their starting point. This sense of achievement ensures a love of writing.