English Writing
Writing
A St Thomas More learner will develop a love of writing for a range of purposes and audiences. They will learn and apply the conventions of writing including; grammar, vocabulary, punctuation and spelling. Children will improve their writing skills by planning, drafting and editing to write creatively for themselves and others.
Progression in writing at St Thomas More...
Teaching and Learning of Writing
We follow The National Curriculum programme of study for English. Teachers promote writing and look for ways to inspire and motivate pupils so that they see themselves as ‘writers’. Teachers establish the purpose and audience for writing and make teaching objectives explicit to pupils so they know why they are studying a particular text type, the kind of writing activities they need to undertake and what the expected outcome will be.
Our writing lessons across the school follow this writing progression cycle:
- Immersion in a text and genre through whole class guided reading;
- Identifying key features and capturing ideas;
- Supported writing incorporating grammar and punctuation;
- Independent writes using structured success criteria;
- Editing and improving writing.
Cross - curricular writing
Where possible, texts are chosen to link with topic. Reading skills are applied to help research e.g. in history and geography. Teachers expect children to adopt age appropriate writing skills in all areas of writing. The same expectations are also placed on handwriting and spelling regardless of the activity/context.
Handwriting
In Reception and Year 1, children are taught to print using formative phrases in line with their phonetic learning.
Pre-cursive handwriting will begin in Year 2 and joined handwriting is taught from year 3 onwards. All the joins will be taught by the end of year 3 and from then on children are encouraged to use joined handwriting for all their writing - notes and more formal pieces of writing.
In order to start learning the joins, children first need to be forming individual letters accurately so that each letter ends in the correct place. They need to see the joins being written, before practising themselves.
When children are secure in the use of all four joins, short bursts of regular practice will help to build up speed and fluency.
Progression of cursive handwriting:
