Writing at Spetisbury

Our vision

At Spetisbury Primary School, our vision is to inspire all children to develop a love of writing and to become confident natural writers. Through carefully and progressively planned lessons, we aim to give the children the ingredients to write creatively and imaginatively for a variety of purposes across varying genres and the wider curriculum. We aim to give the children the opportunity to make their writing the best that it can possibly be. Writing is like making a cake, you need all the ingredients to make the best cake you’ve ever tasted.

Curriculum Intent

At Spetisbury Primary School, we believe that all pupils should be able to communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. We want all pupils regardless of ability to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and punctuation and be able to spell new words effectively by applying their phonic understanding, spelling patterns and rules learnt. We want all of our children to write clearly, accurately and coherently selecting the correct vocabulary while adapting their language and style for a range of genres, purposes and audiences. Staff at Spetisbury encourage every child to take pride in their writing by developing cursive joined handwriting by the end of year 1 and using this from then on. Children edit and improve their writing by re-reading it and making alterations to the vocabulary, grammar or sentence construction to make their writing the best that it can be. The children at Spetisbury are proud of their writing and enjoy sharing it.

Curriculum Implementation

At Spetisbury, we teach English daily as a whole class lesson so that all children are included and have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Lessons are carefully planned to support all pupils in order for them to achieve and produce writing, which is to the best of their ability. At Spetisbury, we teach writing through the Immersion, Imitation and Innovation approach. The first phase of each English unit is to Immerse the children into the genre or style of writing by the introduction of a quality first text. This allows the children to explore the structure of the text, act out the story, story map the text, identify key features and learn new punctuation and grammar features relevant to the genre. Teachers explicitly teach the grammar, punctuation skills and compositional features of the specific genre of writing. Vocabulary banks are developed and built in our vocabulary rich classrooms. Imitation is the second phase of the writing process where the children learn to use the structure of the text to plan in new characters, settings and problems while incorporating the key learning from the immersion phase. This develops the opportunity for building their own ideas whilst understanding the structure. Through careful teaching and high-quality modelling, all children develop a deeper understanding of the impact of the writing on the reader. Regular feedback provides all children with support on their learning journey as to their areas of strengths and areas that need to be developed further. The final phase of the writing process is Invention. In this final phase of the English unit, the children use everything they have learnt through the two previous writing phases to plan and write their own piece of independent writing linked with the focus text. Detailed planning documents are provided to guide teachers on which genres to teach across the year. 

Curriculum Impact

We want all of the children at Spetisbury to be confident and imaginative writers, who display personal style and flair. They will have a good grasp of basic skills in writing for different purposes and will demonstrate accuracy in grammar and spelling. Children will have a wide vocabulary in both speech and in writing and will use word choices effectively to convey specific ideas or feelings. Children will be aware of their strengths in their writing and their areas for development. They will be reflective, using their purple pens to make careful editing improvements. The children will make good progress in writing over time and the majority will meet age related expectations, in line with the national statistics.