Inspire - The Writing Curriculum

At Spinney Hill Primary, we are committed to developing confident, fluent, and motivated writers who possess the foundational skills, knowledge and enthusiasm needed to communicate effectively and become confident writers. We inspire a love of language and writing from the earliest stages, recognising that secure early foundations are key to long‑term success. This begins with the rich provision in the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1.

We place a strong emphasis on building firm foundations in EYFS and KS1 through the teaching of early writing skills. This ensures that all pupils develop strong phonics knowledge to support accurate spelling and early independence in writing. A strong focus on handwriting fluency enables them to write with confidence, while a developing understanding of grammar and sentence structure is taught through meaningful, engaging contexts. We support all children through the use of explicit teaching, dictated sentences, high‑quality modelling, and carefully planned scaffolds that enable every pupil to access and succeed in these fundamental skills. We believe that early mastery of these skills enables children to move into Key Stage 2 as confident, capable writers who can focus on composition, creativity, and refining their authorial voice.

Talk is central to our writing curriculum. We recognise that oracy underpins literacy, before children can be successful writers, they need opportunities to articulate ideas, rehearse language, and build a wide, expressive vocabulary. Through purposeful talk, children learn how language works, how ideas can be shaped and how meaning can be communicated with clarity and effect. We grow confident communicators who listen carefully, respond respectfully and use language that reflect their intent.

Through explicit teaching of foundational skills, rich opportunities for talk and exposure to high‑quality texts, we aim to nurture pupils who write with confidence, purpose and pride. Pupils possess strong foundational skills that promote independence. By the time they leave our school, pupils will achieve as writers and grow as individuals-seeing themselves as authors equipped with the skills, voice, and self‑belief needed to succeed in the next stage of their education and throughout their lives.

How we teach writing at Spinney Hill 

In the foundation stage, the teaching of writing follows the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, with a strong emphasis on building the essential foundational skills children need to become confident early writers. Children extend their understanding of spoken language through high‑quality play, purposeful back‑and‑forth interactions and rich exposure to learning‑related vocabulary across all areas of provision. All early writing takes place within an oracy‑rich context, which supports the developmental needs of every child, particularly those with English as an additional language or who are new to English. It provides the foundations needed to begin forming simple words and phrases with increasing independence.

As pupils move into Key Stage 1, these foundational skills remain a central focus. Systematic phonics teaching continues to underpin accurate spelling and early composition; handwriting fluency is prioritised so pupils can record their ideas with the correct letter formation and with speed. These elements continue to be taught explicitly, embedded within meaningful writing opportunities and revisited regularly to ensure automaticity. By deepening these foundations, pupils are equipped to take the next steps in writing with greater independence, clarity and control.

In Key Stage 2, teaching builds on the strong foundational skills established in earlier years and supports pupils to become increasingly independent, skilled and reflective writers. The ‘I, We, You’ approach continues to structure learning, but with a greater emphasis on pupils taking ownership of the writing process as scaffolding is gradually withdrawn. Children refine their ability to plan, draft, revise and edit with purpose, applying these processes with growing confidence and automaticity. As they progress through KS2, pupils deepen their understanding of effective composition—forming, articulating and organising ideas with clarity, using a widening range of vocabulary and grammatical structures to achieve specific effects. They also develop a stronger awareness of audience, purpose and context, making deliberate authorial choices that shape the tone, structure and impact of their writing. All writing in KS2 is guided by the Spinney Hill acronym, PVA, ensuring that pupils write with a clear purpose, understand their intended audience and adopt an appropriate viewpoint, enabling them to craft writing that is coherent, engaging and increasingly sophisticated

Long-term Plans  

To ensure breadth and depth of the development of foundational skills, a carefully structured long term plan is mapped out with deliberate progression of skills appropriate to the year group that focuses on building confident writers. Writing skills are regularly reinforced within lessons across the wider curriculum. Scaffolds are used to support pupils with SEND and early writers, including strategies such as widgets and colourful semantics, helping to guide and structure writing according to each child’s stage of development. For more able writers, opportunities are provided to write with greater independence, confidence and creativity. Contexts for writing are deliberately chosen to engage and motivate pupils using high-quality stimuli from novels, high-quality picture books, trips and visits, or from the purposeful, cross-curricular links with the broader curriculum.   

 Grammar and Punctuation

All children are taught discrete punctuation and grammar skills that are age-appropriate. These skills are taught progressively and in context to ensure children have a secure understanding. The children then have an opportunity through a low-stakes write to practise these relevant sentence structures to build confidence in using these skills. Children are encouraged to identify, practice and consolidate grammatical understanding through the reading of specific texts and skills then developed and embedded throughout the writing journey.

Reading as a reader and reading as a writer

At Spinney Hill, we know how important it is to expose children to a range of texts in order to immerse the children in the language and structure of the piece pupils will write. After reading an example for meaning and applying their reading skills, children are then focussed on the spotlight grammar and discuss the impact this has on the reader.

Planning, drafting, editing and publishing

During the writing journey, children plan, draft, edit and improve their writing. Teachers have high expectations for all pupils and reinforce these throughout the writing process by modelling expectations. In Key Stage 2, teachers model on a different context or perspective to encourage greater independence. As teachers model, they ensure the language features and the effect on the reader is explicit as they write, modelling both their thoughts and the editing process out loud, and always referring to the foundational skills as the write.