At Hamstel Infant School and Nursery we believe writing is a fundamental life skill that is needed as a means to communicate knowledge and ideas in a variety of ways. It is essential that we provide the children with the key tools for writing so they become confident writers and enjoy writing for different purposes at the age expected outcomes.

 We aim:

To deliver our writing curriculum using a theme based approach, quality texts and enriched experiences to inspire and give purpose to our young writer’s. Our Hamstel Headlines form part of our drive for quality first teaching in writing across the school.  Through our delivery we aim:

 

• That our children acquire a wide range of vocabulary that they can apply with confidence to enhance their independent writing.

• For our children to be able to spell at age appropriate expectations. 

• To ensure children apply taught phonics, spelling patterns and rules independently to writing across the curriculum.

• To provide a flexible writing curriculum and clear adaptations for children so they can be successful at composing and applying taught skills across a range of narrative and non-narrative styles through exciting writing opportunities.

• For our children to write in a fast, fluent, legible and sustainable handwriting style across our themes and curriculum by the end of KS1.  

• That children value their writing and demonstrate care and pride in the presentation and organistation of their written work.

• That our children have a good understanding of the grammar knowledge and skills needed to be a coherent writer for their age expected outcomes.

• That our children have high quality modelling and scaffolding to support the fundamental writing skills needed for writing fluency.

                                 

 This will be achieved by:

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• A carefully planned writing curriculum that shows progression and sequenced lessons from Nursery to end of KS1.

• Use of high quality stimulus’s to provide meaningful contexts for writing to ensure children are successful

• Providing opportunities to revisit skills and develop and apply new skills and knowledge needed for writing

• Providing opportunities to prepare for writing by using oracy skills and give time for children to practice, apply and embed their writing skills

• Use of high quality shared and modelling writing strategies underpinned by our Hamstel Headlines

• Modelling key vocabulary within different sentence types and the use of STEM sentences to support sentence structure

• Planning of deliberate vocabulary that enriches the development of age appropriate language

• Teaching handwriting explicitly based on the PenPals scheme with opportunities to practice and with consistent instruction

• Teaching spelling predominately through daily RWInc lessons

• Teaching the KS1 spelling patterns in explicit lessons with opportunities to practice and apply

• Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation being taught explicitly and then revisited, practiced and applied through compositional writing

• Teaching all children from Reception to Year 2 how to make simple edits and revisions to their writing using the purple pen of power

• Assessing writing at key points throughout the year to improve teaching and learning in writing

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How will we know we have achieved our aims?

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• Children are expose to and confidently use a wide range of creative and subject specific vocabulary in writing

• Children confidently use their phonics to segment words and apply to writing confidently

• Children apply with accuracy their common exception words to their writing

• Staff are highly skilled at adapting, modelling and scaffolding writing to meet the needs of our young writers.

• Children enjoy writing for different purposes and make excellent progress from their entry point through a high quality, flexible and inspiring writing curriculum.

• Children value their writing, take care and pride in their handwriting presentation and all writing across the curriculum.

• Writing skills are explicit and threaded through the writing curriculum to ensure children revisit, practice and apply to different narratives, allowing them to become fluent and coherent writers.