English | stwilfs

Writing

At St Wilfrid's, we strive for pupils to develop a love of language, through a high quality, text-based approach to teaching writing and their vocabulary development. We teach daily English lessons which encompass a range of whole class and group teaching. Links across the curriculum are created for the teaching and learning of writing across the school, linking knowledge learnt in other subject areas and providing stimulus and context to writing outcomes. Often, these links are made to Geography, History and Science, and application of grammatical knowledge and writing composition are applied to this specific knowledge resulting in extended writing outcomes.

At the heart of our writing is giving the children a purpose for their writing and knowing they are ‘authors’ in their own right. We aim for St Wilfrid's pupils to understanding why their writing is an important vehicle in whatever context is given and how they can use their writing skills to be lifelong learners.

We cover a range of genres across school which aim to give our children a broad range of writing skills. Please see below for each year group's writing outcomes.

Year One Year Two Year Three Year Four Year Five Year Six

Writing is formally assessed in the Autumn, Spring and Summer term. In order to accurately assess writing, we use a progression tool which in turn allows staff to see the strengths and weaknesses of our young writers. From these assessments, children are set their own personalised targets which are meant to fill these gaps and therefore allowing them to move closer to achieving the Expected Standard.

Writing Progression

Phonics & Reading

Reading is a vital life skill in which we want all children at St Wilfrid's to succeed in. It is for this reason why we put reading at the heart of of curriculum. In the Foundation Stage, we follow Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Revised, which is a DFE approved synthetic phonics programme. This programme is continued through to Year One where the children are assessed using the Phonics Screener towards the end of the school year. In Year Two the children follow the Little Wandle Fluency Programme for guided reading.

Reception Autumn 1 sounds

Reception Autumn 2 sounds

Reception Spring sounds

Year 1 sounds

In Key Stage Two (Years 3-6) we follow the Bug Club Comprehension scheme. Bug Club Comprehension is a guided reading programme used throughout Key Stage Two that uses a talk-based approach to develop a deeper understanding of texts.

Bug Club Comprehension is built on a number of pedagogical principles:

Three key questions for each text (looking, clue, thinking)

The use of strategies for comprehension: