Writing

If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.

Martin Luther

Intent

Purpose & Passion in Written Expression ✍️✨

At Christ Church CE Primary School, we believe that a quality writing curriculum should ignite and cultivate a child’s love of writing, creating a firm and lasting foundation of skills and knowledge. We aspire to widen our children’s horizons through developing their ability to communicate effectively and thoughtfully in the written form, expanding their capacity to craft meaning and share their unique voice with the world around them.

Technical Precision & Creative Flair 🛠️🧠

We recognise the importance of creating a culture where children take pride in their writing. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that pupils write clearly, accurately and purposefully, learning to adapt their language, tone and style for a range of contexts, audiences and genres. By embedding a secure knowledge-base in English, we provide a clear pathway of progression as children advance through the primary phases, ensuring they master the mechanics of grammar, punctuation and spelling alongside creative composition.

Empowered Writers for a Global Future 🌍💪

A secure basis in writing skills is crucial to a high-quality education. We equip our children with the exact tools and stamina they need to participate, create and succeed fully both across the wider curriculum and in their future lives as active local, national and global citizens who can influence change through the power of the written word.

Inclusive Success for All Writers 🤝🏆

At Christ Church CE Primary, we ensure our writing curriculum is highly inclusive and accessible to all, maximising the development of every child’s unique ability. Through effective scaffolding, personal resource packs and targeted adaptations, we ensure that all pupils—including those with SEND and EAL—experience genuine success, build writing resilience and exercise their right to express themselves confidently and creatively.

Implementation

Our Writing Curriculum

Ready, Steady, Write✍️🚀

At Christ Church CE Primary School, we teach writing through a systematic, progressive and text-driven approach. Our whole-school vehicle for writing is Literacy Counts’ ‘Ready Steady Write’ framework, ensuring a highly structured pathway to authorship.

The Ready Steady Write Sequence 📖🛠️

Ready Steady Write provides carefully sequenced units of writing, with one core unit taught per half term. Each unit is built around a thoughtfully chosen 'Vehicle Text'—beautifully illustrated, high-quality literature that inspires children’s writing.

There are a range of agreed pedagogies for Ready, Steady, Write. These include daily teacher modelling of sentence accuracy, along with shared and guided writing sessions. These shared approaches ensure consistency in the teaching of writing across year groups.

Over the course of each unit, children produce two extended pieces of writing: one narrative and one non-fiction piece, both deeply rooted in the themes of the text. The lessons building up to these longer outcomes follow a rigorous four-stage sequence:

Immerse: Children immerse themselves in the language, vocabulary and context of the new text to excite, inspire and motivate them.
Analyse: Children analyse a high-quality model text containing the statutory grammar and spelling for their National Curriculum year group, learning to identify what successful writing looks like.
Plan: Children are supported to map out their ideas, considering the specific grammar, vocabulary and punctuation needed for their purpose.
Write: Children draft, edit, proofread and complete their final piece, leaving them with an independent outcome of which they can be rightly proud.

Contextual Grammar & Punctuation 🧠📝

Ready Steady Write teaches children grammar and punctuation using the evidence-based approach that technical skills are best learned in context. To secure deep understanding and fluency, teachers supplement this framework with additional, discrete grammar lessons, allowing children further opportunities to practise, apply and embed their new learning.

Read Write Inc. Spelling🪐🚀

Once children have completed the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, they transition onto the Read Write Inc. Spelling programme, designed to help every child spell effortlessly. This daily, interactive 15-minute programme runs from Year 2 to Year 6 and is specifically mapped to the demands of the National Curriculum.

Every member of staff has received extensive Ruth Miskin training to ensure exceptional consistency across the school. The weekly cycle is structured across five quick-fire, engaging sessions:

Session 1 (The Spelling Zone): Introduces the new spelling pattern using an exciting video that transports children to the online spelling planet.
Session 2 (Word Changing): Features a quick recap of prior learning followed by a dynamic word-changing activity.
Session 3 (Spelling Logs): Focuses children on identifying words they need to learn, recording them in their personal logbooks for consolidation throughout the week.
Session 4 (Dictation & Peer Assessment): Encourages children to work in pairs to assess each other's work, choosing correct words to complete contextual sentences.
Session 5 (Four-in-a-row): Allows children time to unpick tricky words, tackle exceptions to the rules and demonstrate correct spelling through interactive activities.

Handwriting - Letterjoin ✒️🏫

From the very beginning of their school journey, children practise fine and gross motor skills, progressing to mastering the correct pencil grip and posture through the Read Write Inc. framework. From Year 1 upwards, children move onto a cursive handwriting style using the Letter-join programme. We maintain high expectations for presentation, aiming for all children to possess a neat, fluent and legible style by Upper Key Stage 2. Children write in pencil until they earn their coveted ‘Pen Licence’.

Spirituality: Windows, Mirrors and Doors ✨🌍

Believing Christ to be in all of us, we embrace writing as a spiritual act that allows children to reflect upon themselves and the wider world. We intentionally select diverse, powerful literature that serves as:

Windows 🪟: Allowing children to look out into unfamiliar worlds, learning about different cultures, religions and historical perspectives through written expression.
Mirrors 🪞: Providing texts where children see their own identities, hobbies, interests and backgrounds reflected, validating their unique worth and inspiring personal narrative writing.
Doors 🚪: Giving children the creative and communicative tools to step through into new possibilities, using their writing to challenge injustice, express deep empathy and flourish as global citizens.

This spiritual dimension encourages children to write not just for academic success, but to express their inner thoughts, wonder, imagination and values.

Purposeful Writing Across the Curriculum 🏰🔬

Our rich and broad curriculum invites extensive opportunities for writing in all subject areas. Teachers encourage children to apply the technical knowledge and creative skills built up during English lessons to a range of contexts in History, Geography, Science and beyond, ensuring high standards of literacy are maintained across all written schoolwork.

Celebration of Writing 🎉🏆

Children’s efforts, stamina and achievements in writing are celebrated regularly. We showcase outstanding work on displays around the school, share exceptional pieces on school social media platforms and present certificates during our weekly Awards Assembly. Children are also regularly encouraged to enter external writing competitions throughout the academic year.

Impact

Writing Impact 🎯🏆

Our approach to the teaching of writing results in engaging, high-quality lessons that provide children with the essential writing skills and knowledge required for life as local, national and global citizens. By creating a firm foundation for individual growth, all children make good progress academically from their starting points, leaving our school fully prepared for the next stage of their education.

Robust Assessment & Progress Tracking 📈📝

We use a rigorous, evidence-informed approach to monitor and evaluate the impact of our writing curriculum:

Termly Assessments: Staff use the INSIGHT tracking platform on a termly basis to assess children against targeted statements taken from the National Curriculum for Writing.
Annual Attainment: At the end of the academic year, this cumulative data determines each pupil's final attainment level.
Evidencing Progress: Children complete their work in dedicated English books, providing a clear, sequential record of their progress, stamina and skills development across the curriculum. They complete two extended pieces of writing per half term, successfully showcasing the knowledge, vocabulary and grammar skills they have built up throughout the unit.
Pupil Voice: Regular pupil voice interviews are conducted throughout the year to gauge children's enthusiasm for writing, their ability to discuss their learning and how it relates to their own lives.

End of Key Stage 2 Expectations 🎓✨

By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils at Christ Church CE Primary School:

Demonstrate a genuine love for writing and take pride in expressing their ideas .
Draw upon a wide, sophisticated vocabulary and deploy a variety of increasingly rich sentence structures, inspired by our high-quality vehicle texts.
Write with sustained focus and depth across a diverse range of narrative and non-fiction genres.
Maintain a fluent, efficient and legible cursive handwriting style.
Act as confident spellers who possess the critical ability to proofread, refine and edit their own work effectively.
Make strong academic progress relative to their starting points, confidently using their written communication skills to transition successfully into secondary education.