English - Writing

'Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.'

Revelation 1:19

Writing Intent

At Holy Family we explore a range of cross-curricular writing opportunities taught within a high-quality text-based curriculum, to encourage our children to develop their writing skills to become independent and motivated writers. Through a variety of teaching approaches we consistently aim to provide children with the fundamental foundations to become effective and confident communicators.

Children will:

• Foster a love of writing throughout their time in school and show an appreciation of their work.
• Develop vivid imaginations, allowing them to effectively engage their audience to enjoy their writing.

Use increasingly highly-developed vocabulary and have a strong knowledge of writing techniques to organise and structure their writing successfully.

Writing Implementation

 To enable our children to write effectively and coherently we teach Writing using 'The Write Stuff' approach by Jane Considine. This approach is used from Year 1 to Year 6 and allows children to apply basic skills, vocabulary and grammar knowledge to write effective sentences, which are full of impact and keep the reader interested. 'The Write Stuff' brings clarity to the mechanics of teaching writing. It is introduced though the 'Writing Rainbow', using the three zones of writing:

 

From 'The Writing Rainbow', lenses are used to support children within their writing journey and to ensure that all children can use them in context as they move through school.

As part of the teaching sequence, teachers plan experience days; sentence stacking lessons and independent writing sequences. Experience days immerse children in experiences linked to their writing and drench them in vocabulary linked to the lenses. 

Sentence stacking lessons include effective demonstration writing from the teacher and the writing of high-quality sentences using the rainbow. Children are also given the opportunity to 'Deepen The Moment' and add more to their writing using a lense of their choice.

Independent writing sequences give children the opportunity to showcase everything they've learnt in their experience days and sentence stacking lessons.  They are given the opportunity to apply everything they have learnt through a process of planning, writing and editing their work.

 

The Writing Cycle

Opportunities for writing across the curriculum are carefully planned with a balance of fiction and non-fiction text types. A clear sequence is used throughout the writing journey to enable children to produce work to their full potential.

 

After exposure to a new text type we follow a model of Planning, Drafting, Revising, Editing and Publishing to achieve the children’s outcomes. Before the children begin to plan, we will introduce and explore quality texts and stimuli to draw the children in.

 

Introducing the Text

The writing journey begins with a 'sentence stacking lessons through plot points'. Within these plot point lessons, the three success criteria’s set out are met through sentence stacking. The success criteria is introduced, taught, modelled and then the children have an opportunity to change or edit the model that was given to them. They can also ‘deepen the moment’ by writing some more about the same plot point. Subject-specific language and high-level vocabulary is introduced here, which enable this to be incorporated throughout their writing journey. Children are given opportunities to take part in creative ways to explore texts, such as role play and 'hot seating' scenarios.

 

Non-Fiction texts

In regards to non-fiction texts the sequence of lessons is planned through the children identifying and finding the shapes of the text. This concentrates on the text for the reader and enables to children to correctly identify and plan to meet that success criteria in regards to a certain non-fiction text.

 

Plan

After all the plot points are taught and the children have been exposed to a range of success criteria, the children then have their next stage of writing which is the independent write. They plan by using the existing plot points and sequence of lessons to think about how their writing will be adapted to fit the success criteria of the independent write.  Children will complete their plans on A3 squared paper, with their plot points and success criteria mapped out with the sentences to meet the success criteria too.

 

Draft

Here the children will compose their first draft. Using the skills that have been learnt so far and the ideas that have been carefully planned, children can now put these aspects together to create their first draft. Opportunities will be given to share work throughout these lessons which continue to support others and allows more inspiration to be embedded in the classroom.

 

Revise and Edit

Using a range of strategies, children are now able to go back and edit their writing to see how they can make improvements. In particular, they make use of their editing flaps and ‘E’ comments that their teacher has made, directing them to the right area of editing. The 'purple pen’ comes into action here where children, using their purple editing pens, are able to make revisions to their first draft. This can either be completed independently (self-assessment), in pairs or as small groups (peer-assessment). Success criteria that had been created at the beginning of the writing journey is used to support this process. Children have the opportunity to also read their work aloud to the whole class to enable peers to evaluate their writing.

 

Publish

Once the children have used all of the tools provided throughout their writing journey, they may write their final copy in neat, taking all alterations into consideration and reaching their full potential in writing.

 

At Holy Family, our children are provided with opportunities to engage in cross-curricular writing journeys designed to inspire a love of writing. They are exposed to high-quality, stimulating texts, as well as visual literacy which fire their imaginations. Using a multi-sensory approach, the children are able to express themselves in a variety of ways, encouraging them to consolidate their learning and continue to develop their knowledge and skills.

 

Short Writes 

We have also introduced short writes across the school.

Short writes give children the opportunity to use the knowledge they have acquired during sentence stacking lessons and apply it to a shorter piece of writing with a clear audience and purpose. These tasks help children understand why they are writing and who they are writing for.

Providing pupils with a reason to write, and someone to write for, supports effective writing and helps children learn how to adapt their writing for different audiences and purposes.

As outlined in The Writing Framework (2025):

“Giving pupils a reason to write—and someone to write for—can support effective writing and provide opportunities to teach pupils how to adapt their writing for different audiences and purposes.”

Short writes help to build confidence, fluency and independence, enabling children to apply their writing skills in meaningful contexts.

 

Independent Writes

At Holy Family, we have started writing termly in our Independent Write books. The purpose of this is to showcase all of their learning and skills they have learned so far within their year group. It is not supported and will be all their own work. We have mapped out the yearly overview to include different text types so that these are revisited and the skills/knowledge to write in a particular way are remembered. These books will go up to the next class and the progression in their writing will be evident throughout their time at Holy Family.

Grammar

Writing activities support children when applying their grammatical knowledge into their composition and we will discretely teach key concepts to the children whilst exploring texts. We also use Literacy Shed to teach specific Grammar lessons where necessary.

 

Spelling 

Spelling and word knowledge are key components in the process of learning to read and write. To support our children develop these key skills, we use 'Spelling Shed'. This programme is aligned with the English National Curriculum and spelling lists are generated by our teachers to ensure clear progression throughout year groups. Spelling patterns and rules are explored in class, with a variety of games which are fun and engaging for children to build their word study skills and confidence in spelling. This programme also allows children to access personalised lists for those needing extra support.

Children are given spellings linked to the cycle and year group of they are working in, unless they take part in phonics sessions. Spellings are taught in school for at least 45 minutes each week. Instead of a formal weekly spelling test, we focus on ensuring that children can apply their spelling knowledge accurately in their everyday written work.

Parents and carers can support spelling at home by:

• Practising spellings in homework books

• Spelling words out loud

• Discussing the meaning of each word

• Encouraging children to use spellings in sentences

 

Letter Join

Cursive handwriting is first introduced in Year 1 and then implemented across school using the 'Letter-join' cursive handwriting scheme. At Holy Family, we have high expectations of presentation and handwriting to ensure all writing is joined and legible, therefore meeting the expectations set for the end of Key Stage 2 and ensuring all work can be enjoyed by everyone.

Writing Impact

The impact of our Writing curriculum is measured in a variety of ways. Summative assessments are used across the school, written work throughout the term is assessed to inform teachers of pupils’ next steps and successes. Daily, on-going assessments, combined with AfL strategies, are crucial in providing instant feedback to teachers and ensures progress within every lesson.

Pupils will:

• Be able to manipulate and use adventurous vocabulary choices, transferring subject-specific terminology into cross-curricular pieces of writing.
• Successfully evaluate and identify ways to improve their work, using strategies to support them within the editing process.
• Use the 'writing cycle' to plan, draft, edit, review and finalise their ideas within a range of genres.

Be proud to share their work and to appreciate that different text types can be suitable for varied audience.

Curriculum Documents

English National Curriculum

Whole School Writing Map - Holy Family  

 The Write Stuff Writing Units

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6