Writing

Writing at St. Mary’s C.E. Primary School

At St. Mary’s CE Primary School, our English curriculum is rooted in our core ethos of “Investing in the uniqueness of each individual”. We believe that every child is “fearfully and wonderfully made”, and our comprehensive writing progression ensures that all students discover their unique voice through a rich variety of text types, including non-fiction, poetry, and diverse fiction genres.

Our Approach to Writing A fundamental principle of our curriculum is that speaking and listening always precede reading and writing. Before children put pen to paper, they explore characters, settings, and viewpoints through drama, role-play, and oral storytelling. Across all year groups, teachers provide heavy cognitive support through modelling, scribing, and shared writing, ensuring children are expertly guided before attempting independent writing tasks. This is underpinned by our structured lesson pedagogy of Recall, I Do, We Do, You Do, which reinforces memory and builds confidence.

Inspiring Core Texts & Cross-Curricular Links We believe that exceptional writing is inspired by exceptional reading. Our writing tasks are deeply intertwined with our wider curriculum topics and high-quality core texts. Whether writing a diary entry from the perspective of an Ancient Egyptian, drafting a persuasive letter about the rainforest, or composing historical fiction during a topic on the Vikings, children are constantly writing with a clear, engaging purpose. Throughout their journey, pupils study beloved texts such as Peter Pan, Traction Man, Wonder, Oliver Twist, and adaptations of Shakespeare like The Tempest.

Early Years & Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2) In the Early Years and KS1, children begin their writing journey by turning stories into play with puppets and props. They build on their phonics knowledge to write simple narratives, recounts, and instructions. Grammar and Punctuation (GaP) is explicitly taught: pupils learn to confidently demarcate sentences with capital letters, full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks, while expanding their noun phrases and using conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘because’. Spelling rules are heavily reinforced, moving from Phase 5 phonics consolidation to mastering suffixes and common exception words.

Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) As students progress, their writing becomes increasingly structured and detailed. Pupils are introduced to paragraphs to group related information and begin to enhance their sentences using fronted adverbials, prepositions, and a wider range of subordinating conjunctions. Writing tasks become more nuanced: they write stories featuring clear dilemmas and resolutions, evaluate persuasive devices used in advertising, and compose non-chronological reports comparing different subjects.

Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6) In their final years at St. Mary’s, students learn to choose the appropriate form, style, and tone to suit specific purposes and audiences. The curriculum covers advanced grammar, teaching pupils to manipulate sentence structures using the passive voice, relative clauses, modal verbs, and the subjunctive form. Pupils engage in highly sophisticated writing tasks, moving from simple arguments to crafting balanced discussions that draw on multiple viewpoints. They draft biographies, journalistic newspaper reports, and complex narratives that purposefully vary pace, use flashbacks, and employ dialogue to reveal character.

Exploring Poetry and Fiction Creativity flourishes at St. Mary’s. Children explore an exciting array of fiction, from fairy tales, myths, and legends to science fiction and adventure stories. They also discover their creative voices through poetry, analysing the figurative language of classic and contemporary poets, and writing their own free verse, haikus, limericks, and visually structured shape poems.