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WRITING

Intent

Our intent for writing is to ensure that children become competent writers while fostering a love of creativity. We aim for pupils to master the fundamental skills for their year group, with these skills carefully sequenced across the school to ensure progressive development.

The English curriculum at Maltby Manor is designed to be progressive, building on prior knowledge and skills to ensure continuity and depth of learning. Lessons are structured to allow pupils to develop writing, grammar, vocabulary, and oracy in a systematic way, with opportunities to apply these skills in meaningful contexts. This approach ensures that the curriculum is consistently delivered, supports all learners, and enables children to thrive as confident and capable writers.

The Writing Rationale

The Maltby Manor approach to writing is fundamentally underpinned by the EEF guidance documents: Preparing for Literacy, Improving Literacy in Key 1 and Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2. Other evidence-based research has also been considered in developing this approach, including but not limited to: Alex Quigley ‘Closing the Writing Gap’. Beck and Co ‘Bringing Words to Life’, Judith Hochman ‘The Writing Revolution, Tom Sherrington ‘The Learning Rainforest’, Rosenshein’s Principles of Instruction and Ofsted’s Summary Report. 

The research recognises that the approach needs to encapsulate improving pupils’ handwriting fluency, securing accurate spelling, a focus on the craft of sentence composition, refining the teaching and learning of grammar, enhance pupil’s ability to edit and review their writing, establish writing in the subject disciplines, develop effective modelling in the classroom, have a systematic assessment of writing and ensure that as a school we invest in a sustained professional development on teaching writing.

 

Implementation

At Manor, writing is taught through a carefully structured and progressive approach from Year 1 to Year 6, designed to equip pupils with the knowledge, skills and confidence to communicate effectively. Writing is delivered through a two-week (or three-week) teaching cycle, ensuring pupils have sufficient time to immerse themselves in a text type, develop grammatical accuracy, build vocabulary and apply skills through extended writing.

Year 1

In Year 1, the focus is on securing the fundamentals of writing, ensuring all pupils develop the essential foundations before progressing. These include:

  • Accurate application of phonics
  • Correct letter formation and orientation on the page
  • Use of basic coordination (e.g. "and")
  • Use of capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks
  • Ability to write simple dictated sentences
  • Orally compose and record sentences
  • Sequence sentences to form a short narrative

Throughout Year 1, teaching places a strong emphasis on transcription skills (handwriting, spelling and sentence construction). Pupils are consistently supported to orally rehearse before writing, helping them develop sentence fluency and confidence. Vocabulary is explicitly taught, and pupils are encouraged to make thoughtful word choices.

Writing Cycle in Year 2 – Year 6

From Year 2 onwards, pupils follow a structured 2–3 week writing cycle for each text type, with genres progressively mapped across Key Stage 1 and 2 to ensure full curriculum coverage and increasing challenge. Across each cycle:

1. Immersion in the text type

  • Pupils explore a model text that exemplifies the target genre (e.g. narrative, letter, report, explanation).
  • Features of the genre are identified and discussed.
  • Texts are analysed at sentence and word level for structure, impact and language choices.

2. Explicit teaching of grammar in context

  • Grammar objectives are taught directly within the context of the model text.
  • Sentence structures are rehearsed and practised through short burst writing.
  • Pupils apply grammar knowledge purposefully in preparation for their final piece.

3. Planning

  • Pupils plan their writing with support from frameworks such as story maps, boxed-up planning or writing frames.
  • Time is given for spoken rehearsal to develop coherence and fluency.

4. Writing

  • Pupils compose their writing over several sessions.
  • Teachers model and scaffold writing, demonstrating effective vocabulary choices, sentence variation and author voice.

5. Editing and Improving

  • Structured editing lessons help pupils review spelling, punctuation, grammar and content.
  • Pupils use success criteria and peer feedback to improve accuracy and clarity.
     

Progression and Consistency

  • Text types are mapped progressively from Year 1 to Year 6, ensuring increasing complexity.
  • Moderation grids and a whole-school writing progression document ensure consistency and high expectations across classes and phases.
  • Writing outcomes are regularly moderated across non-statutory year groups to ensure accurate assessment and shared understanding of standards.

Handwriting and Presentation

Handwriting remains a whole school focus. To support this:

  • High-quality writing books with handwriting guidelines are used.
  • Books are carefully matched to year groups to support handwriting development.
  • Expectations for presentation are reinforced in every lesson to promote pride and clarity.

Vocabulary Development

Rich vocabulary teaching underpins the writing curriculum. Pupils encounter Tier 2 vocabulary in every unit and are supported to use this accurately in their own writing. Oracy is embedded, giving pupils opportunities to articulate ideas and refine language choices before writing.

 

Impact

Our structured approach to writing ensures that all pupils make strong progress and develop as confident, articulate and purposeful writers. Through a clear learning journey from Early Years to Year 6, pupils build secure transcription skills, develop grammatical accuracy and grow as creative thinkers who can write for a range of audiences and purposes.

Across the school, pupils demonstrate:

  • Secure writing fundamentals – By the end of Year 1, pupils apply phonics accurately, form letters correctly and write coherent sentences using appropriate punctuation. Early writing routines such as oral rehearsal, sequencing and simple editing enable pupils to write with growing independence.
  • Strong progress across Key Stage 1 – Pupils develop control of sentence structure and punctuation and show improved presentation through the use of high-quality handwriting books. Their growing vocabulary and grammar knowledge result in increasingly fluent and meaningful writing.
  • Confidence and purpose in Key Stage 2 – Pupils write with increasing fluency and control across a wide range of genres. Their writing demonstrates growing stamina, cohesion and an awareness of audience and purpose. Oracy plays a vital role in shaping writing, enabling pupils to rehearse language, share ideas collaboratively and refine vocabulary choices.

Because teachers use formative assessment effectively, writing is responsive and adaptive. Learning gaps are addressed immediately through targeted feedback and in-the-moment intervention, accelerating progress for all pupils, including those with SEND and disadvantaged pupils. Writing is inspired by meaningful contexts—such as high-quality core texts, educational visits and curriculum hooks—which result in purposeful outcomes and enthusiastic engagement.

Moderation is embedded across all phases to ensure consistency and accuracy of assessment. Termly key stage moderation, alongside support from our Local Authority accredited Year 6 moderators ensures secure professional judgments and supports progression across year groups.

As a result of our writing curriculum:

  • Attainment improves year on year, with pupils meeting the expected standard.
  • Progress is strong for all groups, continually monitored in termly Pupil Progress Meetings.
  • High expectations are consistent across the school, as seen through moderation evidence, writing outcomes and pupil voice.
  • Vocabulary development and grammar mastery are clearly embedded in pupils’ writing.
  • Pupils leave Manor as confident writers, equipped with the skills to express their ideas clearly, creatively and accurately in the next stage of their education.
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