At St Mary's, we empower all our children to be authors. Writing is the gateway to jobs, opportunities and other worlds.  We all have a writer's license; we all have ideas to share and communicate.  We all have an imagination to grow and revel in. We can all let our light shine through our writing. 

In our English lessons, we give our children the opportunity to explore a range of texts, genres and authors, to fill their 'author's briefcase' to the brim.  

We give children opportunities to publish their writing for real purposes so they see the value in what they are doing and understand how writing can make a difference. For example, we write letters to big companies about the damage palm oil is having on rainforests, we write to our local MP, we write leaflets to be displayed in shops and we enjoy having our work shared in Chesterfield library. 

At St Mary's, we follow the National Curriculum writing programme of study. The writing curriculum is intrinsically linked to the reading curriculum. It is ambitious because we have high expectations and we expose children to high quality texts. We teach a range of skills and techniques to enable pupils to become competent writers.

Quality Texts

Writing is taught through reading and analysing high quality texts. We investigate texts to gain a clear understanding of the features and purpose that make the genre. Through this, the children understand the grammatical features that make piece of writing, the layout and language. The quality text provides the children with stimuli and content,  as well as exposing them to a range of different styles of authors.

Planning

After children have learned about the grammatical features and annotated texts, they begin to plan their own writing. Children will use thinking maps to organise their thoughts and ideas logically. This plan provides a scaffold for their independent writing.  When writing their final piece, children try to apply the features of the quality texts that they have been reading.

Modelled Writing

Once children have planned their writing, the teacher will spend time modelling writing in front of the class.  They will model how to write in the style of the genre using the features they have been investigating. The teacher will also model how to write with the correct formality and for the appropriate purpose. The teacher will use metacognition, talking out loud to articulate their thinking about their choices as an author. The teacher will ask the children to help make decisions about the vocabulary use;  the order of words, phrases and sentences and the use of punctuation and grammar.

Writing and editing

The children then write their own pieces; they may do this over several lessons. The children will be given specific feedback as they write and will be given time to edit and improve their pieces. Once finished, the children may be given the opportunity to publish their work.  Depending on the purpose and the audience of the writing, the published pieces could be shared with others in a variety of ways.