Writing & Handwriting

We aim to develop the children’s ability to produce well structured, detailed writing in which the meaning is made clear, and which engages the interest of the reader. Our main approach to teaching writing is a Talk for Writing approach, which we have organised into a three-week basis. During the first week (innovation week), the children will learn and retell a high-quality text that has been carefully chosen by their teacher. They complete a variety of activities during the innovation stage including a prediction, hot-seating, imitation games and reading as a writer. During the second week (innovation week), the children and the teacher use the original story as a basis to write their own by changing key parts such as characters and settings, but keeping the plot the same. Teachers model writing skills and the use of spelling, grammar and punctuation in shared writing during innovation week. In the final week (invention week) children independently write their own text, using ideas from the original text to help them scaffold their new narrative.  

Handwriting Approach 

In Early Years, there is a big emphasis upon fine motor skills, and we use a range of resources to practise these basic skills. This moves into correct letter formation with a focus on both upper and lower case letters. When children are confidently forming all their letters correctly they begin to  move towards cursive handwriting, usually by the end of KS1; where they are encouraged to join their writing, continuing to use the correct ascenders and descenders. Teachers will model their year group’s expected handwriting style when recording on the board, on displays around the classroom and when writing in children’s books.