It is our intent at St Robert Southwell Primary School to provide pupils with a high-quality education in English that will teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively.

At St Robert Southwell, Writing is a crucial part of our curriculum. All children from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills in writing lessons and across the curriculum. Curriculum objectives are mapped out in long term and medium term planning for each year group.

We believe our children should be active and engaged in their learning and that lessons should be tailored to meet their interests and needs. Through staff training and support from TT Education, we have developed a curriculum which allows children to study a variety of well-chosen texts and, using a range of teaching strategies and approaches, provides them with the skills to write effectively across a range of writing genres. We aim to engage and motivate children in their learning in English as well as enabling our children to deepen their experience, understanding and enjoyment of texts and provide a meaningful context for writing. Through our text choices, we aim to reflect the cultural, social and linguistic diversity of the children, as well as introducing world beyond the familiar.

The Writing Curriculum at St Robert Southwell follows the objectives outlined in the National Curriculum for England and, through our work with TT Education, we have carefully planned and tailored a curriculum to meet the needs of our children. In line with the National Curriculum, we aim to ensure that all pupils:

• acquire a wide vocabulary and an understanding of grammar convention
• develop a knowledge and understanding of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate a rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

At St Robert Southwell, children are provided with opportunities to experience various text types (Experience It) and, through gamification (Play With It), they deepen their understanding of relevant concepts. They then apply their learning to written work (Use It) and are given opportunities to develop this (Develop It) and make connections (Connect It) with other areas of learning. They will also develop an awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. We aim to ensure that pupils leave school being able to use fluent, legible and speedy handwriting. Proficiency in all these elements result in a reduction of cognitive load, enabling pupils to succeed as writers.

We equip children with the skills to understand the relationships between words, how to understand nuances in meaning, and how to develop their understanding of, and ability to use, figurative language. They are taught how to work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning. Pupils are taught to control their speaking and writing consciously and to use Standard English.

At St Robert Southwell, children see themselves as writers and, through our use of gamification, are equipped with the skills and ideas ready to write.

Outcomes are measured through a variety of methods including both formative and summative assessment, learning walks, pupil voice, classroom observations, book scrutinies and external reviews.

Our impact is evident in our outstanding results at the end of each phase. Our children become more confident writers and are able to express their ideas fluently. We ensure that children become more structured in their written responses, learning to think carefully about the way in which they introduce, substantiate and develop their points. Children are able to experiment with language and explore different ways of discovering and shaping their own meanings. They become writers who use writing as a means of reflecting on and exploring a range of views and perspectives on the world.

Our success in implementing our current Writing curriculum was acknowledged through receiving the ‘Trailblazers’ award from TT Education in recognition of the work being done at the school, including our staff being observed by teachers from numerous schools to gain an understanding of how Writing is taught at St Robert Southwell.