As writing is a means of expression, both for personal cognitive purposes and for communicating with others, teaching children to write with confidence, fluency, imagination and accuracy is at the core of our curriculum at St Peter and St Paul. In order to achieve this, we follow Talk for Writing as a whole school process for the teaching of English.

From their first days with us, to their last, the children are immersed in wealth of wonderful writing. Central to the approach is the principle that the children must be able to say what they want to write. We use drama, games and story maps to help the children learn stories, vocabulary and sentence structures. Teachers act as expert models of the writing process in shared writing sessions. Moving through the phases of imitation, innovation and independent application, allows the children to continually cycle through supported and independent writing opportunities to write a range of different story and text types. Talk for Writing, supports the children to develop their confidence in writing and see themselves as authors. 

Writing in Reception

Donaldson Class have been exploring the story of The Three Little Pigs. 

Writing in Key Stage One

In Key Stage One, we are currently focusing on description, action and dialogue.

Rosen Class, Year 1, are looking at the story of 'Handa's Surprise'. We have been thinking carefully about using past tense verbs as well as beginning to think about how we can include adverbs to add more detail to our writing. 

Year 2 are looking at the story of The Man on the Moon. 

Writing in Key Stage Two 

Year 3 have just finished their first unit looking at portal stories. They are still enjoying their class reader 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' but have had a go at writing their own portal stories based on the model text Elf Road. Coelho Class worked really hard to make sure they used lots of descriptive techniques to describe their portal to their reader. 

Coelho Class are now moving on to look at a 'defeating the monster story'. They are studying the text George and the Dragon and have begun learning their new text map. Coelho Class have been doing some extra work to think about the conjunctions that are used within their story.