"Love one another as I have loved you."

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Writing is a crucial part of the curriculum at St Joseph’s. Our core objectives are to foster a love of writing, and for pupils to be able to express their thoughts and ideas with clarity and creativity. Staff are intent on promoting writing for pleasure, and seek to deliver relevant, engaging units to help stimulate children's authorship and flair.  With the assistance of  high-quality reading texts, we aim to embed rich vocabulary throughout all areas of the curriculum. We place emphasis on self-efficacy, creating writers who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing, and confidently use the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling. All staff set clear, high standards, and explicitly teach a fluent, cursive handwriting style which will allow their imaginations to flourish.

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Writing Curriculum

At St Joseph's, we follow the TalkforWriting programme. Each unit is divided into three stages which are outlined below:

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Imitate

Children are exposed to an age-specific model text which will form the basis of the upcoming unit. Through oral rehearsal and actions, the text is then rehearsed with the intention of internalising language and sentence structure. Each child will become accustomed to the text by reading as a writer and analysing the features used.

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Innovation

Once the core text has been internalised, children will be given the opportunity to innovate and adapt the original content. This might involve, but is not limited to, substitution, addition, alteration or a change of viewpoint. Much of this is guided and scaffolded by teachers in order to prepare them for the final stage of the process.

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Independent Application

The final stage gives pupils the agency to compose their own independent piece. With their prior knowledge of the core text, combined with guided innovation, children should be equipped with the necessary tools to create an independent composition. 

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TalkForWriting in Action!

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As a school, we are committed to ensuring our writing units are immersive as we believe engagement is the key to imagination.

Below are some examples of when our learning becomes immersive, engaging and- subsequently- yields high-quality writing.

 

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Every Tuesday after school, our most enthusiastic authors gather in the Year 6 classroom for our much-loved storytellers club. Without the restriction of class units, each child is given the freedom to write creatively and for pleasure. So far we have written poems, comics, and time travel adventures! 

 

 

 

 

Handwriting and Spelling

 

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School’s handwriting and spelling policy explains the vision of its writing standards, the skills it aims to provide the pupils, why these are important and how handwriting and spelling will be taught progressively across the school.

 

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School aims for children to: 

• Write with a neat, eligible style with correctly formed letters in cursive handwriting 

• Develop stamina to write at length in extended pieces of writing 

• To write with fluency in a consistent style across all subjects within the curriculum 

• To have a range of spelling strategies to spell accurately and confidently 

• To identify links between spelling patterns

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Handwriting and Spelling Policy