Writing
Writing at St Benedict's
Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy Counts in Years 1 to 6 to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations. Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and purpose. Through the use of high-quality, vocabulary-rich texts, we provide exciting and meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature and taught to craft their writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as regular opportunities for editing. We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly before writing them down. Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic writers, ready for the next stage of their education. Please click here for further information to find out about the intent, implementation and impact.
·
Handwriting
Handwriting is a taught skill that develops at different rates for different children. All the teachers in our school put a priority on teaching handwriting and having high expectations for handwriting across the curriculum. At our school we ensure that:
- The importance of handwriting is recognised and given appropriate time.
- The progression of handwriting is consistent across the school.
- Handwriting is acknowledged to be a whole-body activity, and emphasis is placed on correct posture and pencil grip for handwriting.
- Expectations of left-handed children are equal to those of right-handed children, and appropriate advice and resources are available to ensure that they learn to write with a comfortable, straight wrist.
- Handwriting is linked into grammar, punctuation, and spelling to practice and contextualise all the transcriptional and stylistic skills for writing.
- Children learn to self-assess their own writing and develop understanding and responsibility for improving it.
- Children learn to write in different styles for different purposes such as print for labelling a diagram, illustrated capitals letters for creating a poster, swift jottings for writing notes, making a ‘best copy’ for presentation and fast, fluent, and legible writing across the curriculum.
From Reception to Year 3, Little Wandle handwriting is used to support our children to develop fluent handwriting and in Key Stage 2 we have adapted the Penpals handwriting scheme to meet the specific and individual needs of our children.
Click here to visit the parent page on handwriting to find out how you can support your child with handwriting at home.
