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At Hylands Primary School, we are committed to nurturing confident and independent writers who can write effectively for a specific purpose and audience. We strive for our pupils’ writing to be purposeful, meaningful, and embedded within our creative curriculum. Our curriculum encompasses a diverse range of text types and genres, ensuring pupils develop a broad and adaptable skill set in writing. Writing units within our curriculum are designed to be taught within authentic contexts wherever possible, making creative and relevant connections to class topics or high-quality texts as stimuli for writing. High-quality teacher modelling is utilised daily, focusing on expanding pupils’ vocabulary and knowledge of varied sentence structures, and pupils are taught how to edit their work effectively in order to produce a piece they are proud to publish.
Writing Overview
At Hylands Primary School, all written work is categorised under one of the following overarching purposes: to entertain, to inform, to persuade, or to discuss. Within these genres, pupils engage with a variety of text types, some of which include narrative, poetry, diaries, letters, non-chronological reports and playscripts. The teaching of these genres and text types has been systematically planned across each year group and throughout the school to ensure a clear progression of skills and writing opportunities across all key stages.
Early Writing
Writing in the Early Years should be recognised as a purposeful and meaningful activity. At our school, Drawing Club is an integral part of the writing curriculum in Nursery and Reception. It is designed to foster early literacy skills through engagement with high-quality texts. A book serves as the stimulus for each writing session, chosen from a range of recommended reads, topic-related texts, or reading for pleasure from our reading spine. Adults in the Early Years actively seek opportunities to model and encourage writing in everyday and playful contexts. Writing for specific audiences is demonstrated through practical examples, such as composing a letter to a family member or friend who lives far away. We build upon children’s interests and identify relevant opportunities in self-initiated play to introduce writing for a purpose. By embedding writing into meaningful and engaging activities, we ensure that children develop confidence and motivation to write from an early stage.
WRITING IN KS1 & KS2
From Year 1 onwards, writing is taught through structured units of work lasting two to three weeks. During these units, pupils develop and apply a broad range of writing skills within a meaningful context, aligned with the specific genre and text type they will produce in an independent piece at the end of the unit.
Each unit begins with a stimulus, which is often a high-quality text but may also be inspired by a school trip, visit, workshop, or practical activity. The purpose and intended audience for the writing are derived from this stimulus and are carefully linked to the wider curriculum.
Pupils engage with example texts from the chosen genre, analysing their structure, grammar, and punctuation features. This is followed by a series of focused skill-based lessons, where pupils learn and practise key grammatical elements within a purposeful context through 'short writes'.
Drawing on the knowledge and skills acquired throughout the unit, pupils are then supported to plan and produce their own independent piece of writing, demonstrating their understanding and application of the taught skills.
At Hylands Primary School, we are committed to ensuring that all writing tasks are published in a meaningful way, allowing pupils to take pride in their efforts and reinforcing the importance of writing for a clear purpose.
Publishing may take various forms, including contributing to a shared class display, performing a poem or speech, creating an online diary or blog, producing a video or audio recording of their creative writing, or even posting letters they have written. By providing these authentic publishing opportunities, we aim to enhance pupils' engagement, motivation, and understanding of the real-world impact of their writing.
SENTENCE STACKING
High-quality teacher modelling is central to all writing lessons at Hylands Primary School. The school implements The Write Stuff approach, ensuring that pupils actively engage in generating and exploring high-level vocabulary. Teaching staff then use this collaboratively developed vocabulary to model the specific writing skills being taught. Pupils are supported in their learning through the use of 'The Writing Rainbow' lenses, which provide a structured framework for developing and applying new writing skills effectively.
PROVIDING FEEDBACK DURING WRITING LESSONS
Verbal feedback is provided to pupils during writing lessons to support immediate editing and improvement of their work at the point of learning. Pupils use green pens to correct spelling and punctuation errors, as well as to identify opportunities to enhance or expand their vocabulary. This approach encourages active reflection and refinement, fostering a culture of continuous improvement in writing.
HOW WE ASSESS PUPILS' WRITING AT HYLANDS PRIMARY
At our school, the assessment of writing is an ongoing process, with pupils receiving personalised targets to support their continuous improvement. In addition to this, pupils' independent writing is formally assessed each term against age-related expectations for their year group. This ensures that progress is carefully monitored and that teaching is tailored to meet the needs of each learner.
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