Writing Statement of Intent

Writing at Chalfont St Peter Infant School

Intent

Writing is an integral part of our curriculum. All of our children are provided with many exciting opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum. Our aim is to equip children with the skills needed to be able to orally rehearse, plan, compose, revise and evaluate their writing. We want our children to develop into confident, able writers who see the value of, and find pleasure in, the writing process. We have high expectations for all pupils within our school and endeavour to ensure that all children make good progress in their writing.

Implementation

Our curriculum is organised in a progressive way, ensuring the objectives of the EYFS 2021 Handbook and National Curriculum 2014 are closely followed.  Writing is evident across our curriculum and a wide range of genres are taught throughout the school.  To ensure children develop a love of writing and the skills needed to be an effective writer we:

• immerse children in high-quality texts and encourage each child to think of themselves as authors
• teach writing through a range of exciting stimuli including film clips, artefacts, visitors and meaningful real-life and first-hand experiences which we hope will excite the children and want them to write
• model the writing process daily to support children’s writing and make expectations clear
• ensure children write for a real purpose and reason
• provide children with opportunities to develop a rich vocabulary to bring their own writing to life
• teach Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and Phonics explicitly and apply them to texts
• encourage children use and apply their phonic knowledge in their writing
• teach the children how to proof-read and check their writing makes sense and then, in Year 2, how to make revisions and additions so they can improve their writing
• use a rigorous, sequential approach to teaching handwriting
• ensure children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention

Handwriting

Intent

We recognise the importance of children being able to write legibly, fluently and at reasonable speed. With these skills in place children have a much greater chance of reaching and demonstrating their true potential throughout their school careers and beyond. By the end of KS1 it is our intent that children will:

• hold a pencil effectively, using the tripod grip in almost all cases
• acquire adequate strength, dexterity and coordination to form legible letters
• form lower-case letters of the correct size relative to one another
• begin to use some of the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left un-joined
• write capital letters and digits of the correct size, orientation and relationship to one another and to lower-case letters
• use spacing between words that reflects the size of the letters
• develop a sense of pride in the presentation of their work, and an understanding of the importance of clear and neat handwriting in order to communicate meaning clearly

Implementation

Handwriting in Reception:

In line with the most recent DfE’s criteria, (April 2021 SSP programmes), at first, children should not be taught to join letters or to start every letter ‘on the line’ with a ‘lead-in’, because these practices cause unnecessary difficulty for beginners. Children may be taught to join the letters in digraphs. Children may be taught simple exit strokes for letters that end ‘on the line’ (a, d, h, i, k, l, m, n, t, u). (All resources designed for children to read should be in print).

This is how we form letters in Year R:

In the early stages of handwriting development, children are introduced to activities to establish fine motor skills. Patterning, drawing and colouring helps establish the feeling of continuous flow and teaches the hands the most frequently used movements. Multi-sensory experiences ensure that the techniques are not only fun to learn, but that the skill is learnt effectively by pupils with a variety of learning styles. In each classroom there is a Fine Motor Area where fun challenges are set out to develop various fine motor skills such as eye hand coordination, or pincer grip e.g. using tweezers and pegs. Discrete handwriting sessions are completed with the adults in the classroom to support and develop children’s letter formation and handwriting skills. These tie into Phonics sessions and letter formation is taught alongside the letter sounds. Opportunities for mark making are planned for inside and the outdoor areas. Children are offered a range of materials and experiences for mark making developed across all seven areas of learning. When teachers are modelling activities, they demonstrate and encourage a tripod pencil grip.

Handwriting in Key Stage 1

In KS1, handwriting forms part of daily, early morning activities and is a focus in Phonics and Spelling lessons. These focus on letter formation and the objectives of the Key Stage 1 Programmes of Study. Children use handwriting books, printed with lines as a guide, to support their handwriting. Teachers provide opportunities to demonstrate and reinforce correct letter formation, using a continuous cursive lead-in to the correct starting point for each letter. Capital letters are not joined because they do not start from the line. Extra intervention is offered to children who need further handwriting support.

This is how we form letters in KS1:

Impact

The children at our school are enthusiastic writers who enjoy demonstrating their writing skills. They are inspired and motivated to write through an effectively planned and engaging curriculum. Well taught lessons with appropriate and ongoing feedback for each child can be seen in the progress that children make in their books. Presentation is valued and is of a high standard; most children move into Key Stage 2 able to write in a neat, cursive style.  At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD).