At St Mary’s, every child from Reception to Year 6 engages in a one-hour writing lesson each day. Our Writing Learning Journey is carefully designed to build on knowledge and skills, enabling children to become confident and successful writers.
Our Writing Learning Journey
- Tailored Progression: Each Writing Learning Journey is tailored to the needs of our children, demonstrating a clear progression of skills that leads to a high-quality end piece of writing. Teachers use a genre-specific focus text or video stimulus to immerse children in the language and features of the genre, which they then apply to their own writing. The duration of each journey is dependent on the genre and the needs of the class.
- Exploration of Genre: Children begin by identifying and understanding the features of the focus genre, deconstructing model texts, and considering the audience and purpose of their writing.
- SPaG Integration: Relevant spelling, punctuation, and grammar (SPaG) skills are taught through WAGOLLs (What A Good One Looks Like) and shared writing strategies. These strategies focus on objectives essential for producing a high-quality final writing piece.
- Adaptive Teaching: A range of adaptive teaching strategies is incorporated to remove barriers to learning, ensuring all children can succeed in their lessons.
- End Writing Piece: The final writing piece is completed over several days, allowing children time to revisit WAGOLLs, edit their work, and meet success criteria. They independently apply the skills they have learned during the unit to produce their best writing.
- Pit Stops: Teachers include ‘pit stops’ during lessons, providing children with opportunities to pause, reflect, and edit their work with guidance and modelling.
- Live Marking: Teachers use pink highlighters to provide immediate feedback during lessons, focusing on spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Children respond to this feedback using purple pens, developing their ability to review and improve their work. This strategy is used consistently from Year 1 to Year 6.
- Cross-Curricular Writing: English skills are integrated into foundation subjects, offering cross-curricular opportunities for children to apply their knowledge of key vocabulary and writing techniques.
- Writing Displays: Each classroom features a Writing Learning Journey display on the English working wall. These displays highlight the key SPaG skills being taught, examples of children’s work, and the end product—a fantastic piece of extended writing.
From Reception to Year 6, our working walls visually represent the English Learning Journey, showing the key skills and vocabulary children are mastering. These displays showcase examples of children’s work, culminating in a final piece of extended writing that celebrates their progress and achievement.
Explore our gallery to see some examples of the vibrant writing displays that support and inspire our children during their English lessons.
Pep the Poet
Every year, St Mary’s is fortunate to welcome Pep the Poet into school to celebrate Poetry Day. This inspiring event provides each year group with a fantastic opportunity to develop their oracy skills, engage with the beauty of spoken word, and witness high-quality demonstrations of poetry in action. Through interactive sessions, pupils are encouraged to express themselves creatively, building confidence and a love for language. Pep’s visits are always a highlight of the school calendar, fostering a deep appreciation for poetry and enriching our English curriculum with memorable, hands-on experiences. Take a look at our fantastic whole school display showcasing our work.
For more information about Pep the poet please visit: www.pepthepoet.co.uk.
