Writing
Writing Lead - Miss Abdelmawla
Writing Curriculum Intent
Writing is an integral part of the curriculum at Button Lane connected with the teaching of reading and speaking and listening, and developed through all areas of the school curriculum. At Button Lane, we want to ensure that writing skills empower individuals to unlock their potential as independent, lifelong learners, through developing self-esteem, motivation and aspirations for the future, allowing them to understand the purpose of writing and gain skills to thrive.
Our English curriculum offer is shaped to inspire a love of reading, writing and literature through using high quality and varied texts, as a stimulus to shape our children's understanding and spark creativity and imagination. Speaking and listening is a main driver in our curriculum and begins in the Early Years Foundation stage to help diminish word gap, develop language and ensure our children can communicate effectively within their writing.
The planning and delivery of our writing curriculum provides a bond between our values, ethos and the national curriculum through bespoke planning and delivery for the needs of our children. We aim to instill a spiraling progression of skills from the Early Years Foundation Stage to year 6, which provide children with a solid understanding of narrative and non-fiction text types, which are progressive across all years. We strive to deliver our writing lessons around our children interests, beginning with a hook and then providing lots of opportunities to read as both a reader and a writer. This allows our children to gather content and encourages a strong understanding of grammar, so children can utilise it accurately, whether in writing or editing.
We equip our children with key skills, knowledge and vocabulary to open gateways for lifelong learning.
Our English curriculum aims to ensure that our children not only develop resilience to become primary literate but will also develop a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening, that is embedded across all areas of the curriculum.
Through English, we embrace our curriculum drivers:
- Developing speech and language,
- Increasing vocabulary and diminishing word gap,
- Providing real life experiences through opening the world around us,
- Unlocking self-esteem to motivate and aspire for the future,
- Developing cultural capital throughout their school life journey.
By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now and throughout their future life, believing that ‘only the best is good enough.
Implementation
Long-term plans are carefully sequenced to ensure full coverage of the National Curriculum and high-quality teaching across school. Knowledge and skills are revisited and built upon progressively from the Early Years Foundation Stage to Year 6.
Writing is taught through carefully structured units that are engaging, purposeful and rooted in high-quality texts. Each unit is designed to develop vocabulary, grammar and composition skills through meaningful contexts.
Each half term, pupils are taught one narrative and one non-fiction unit, with poetry taught three times across the year. Every unit begins with a clear purpose and audience so that children understand the intent behind their writing.
Units begin with a purposeful hook linked to the core text to engage learners and build excitement. Pupils are regularly given opportunities to ‘read as a reader and as a writer’, enabling them to analyse high-quality models and apply language features in their own work.
Grammar is taught explicitly and within context. In Years 1–6, objectives are taught in line with the National Curriculum and broken into small, progressive steps to ensure secure understanding and application. To support this, we use Grammarsaurus: Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar, alongside modelling, investigation and guided practice.
Each unit includes opportunities for extended independent writing, alongside a formal assessment week at the end of each half term. This enables teachers to assess progress, identify next steps and inform future planning. Writing is also developed across the wider curriculum, allowing pupils to apply their skills in a range of meaningful contexts.
Impact
By the end of Key Stage 2 at Button Lane, we expect our children to be confident, independent writers who can effectively communicate for a range of purposes and audiences. Pupils are able to select appropriate language, vocabulary and grammatical structures to suit the level of formality required and demonstrate a secure understanding of the writing process.
Children are able to:
- Write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, selecting appropriate language
- Describe settings, characters and atmosphere in fictional writing
- Use dialogue to develop characterisation and advance action
- Use a wide vocabulary and appropriate grammatical structures to suit purpose and audience
- Use a range of cohesive devices to ensure writing flows within and across paragraphs, including conjunctions, adverbials and pronouns
- Maintain consistent and accurate use of tense
- Use a range of punctuation accurately, including speech punctuation
- Spell most words correctly and use dictionaries to support ambitious vocabulary choices
- Produce legible, joined handwriting at speed
Our aim is for all children to enjoy writing and to confidently express themselves across a range of genres, demonstrating their growing vocabulary, creativity and technical control.
The impact of our writing curriculum is monitored through a robust cycle of assessment, monitoring and evaluation led by the Writing Leader and Senior Leadership Team. The Writing Leader is responsible for ensuring clear pitch, progression and consistency across the school and uses this information to inform action planning, support and professional development.
This is achieved through:
- Learning walks, lesson observations and pupil discussions to evaluate the quality of writing and inform next steps for teaching and CPD
- Book scrutiny and pupil conferencing, ensuring children can articulate their learning and progress
- Summative assessment, completed half-termly, supported by additional independent writing opportunities across units and the wider curriculum
- Formative assessment within lessons to inform responsive teaching and next steps
- Internal and cluster moderation, including termly cross-phase moderation and shared agreement of standards across schools
- Use of standardised exemplification materials, including school-produced expected and greater depth writing examples
- Lesson study cycles focusing on key groups of learners to reduce gaps in attainment
- Transition activities with feeder secondary schools to ensure progression into Key Stage 3
Pupil progress meetings are used to triangulate assessment information with book looks and pupil voice. These discussions identify pupils not yet on track and inform targeted support, interventions and adaptations to teaching.
Through this systematic approach, we ensure that all pupils make strong progress and leave Button Lane as confident, articulate and ambitious writers.
Writing Gallery
Our writing gallery showcases our writing, across school, home, writing lessons and within our other curriculum areas. Demonstrating our understanding of writing for a purpose as well as showcasing our enjoyment in writing.
