English Intent

To foster a love of reading and writing, helping students build strong language skills. We aim to create a foundation for lifelong learning and academic success, while ensuring the curriculum is inclusive and engaging for all.

Writing Intent

At Barlby Primary School, we are committed to developing our pupils’ ability to write clearly, imaginatively, and coherently, with a strong understanding of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Our goal is to ensure that every child becomes a confident writer who is able to select language to express their thoughts and ideas effectively across a range of contexts, audiences, and purposes. At Barlby Primary, we have high expectations for all our pupils and encourage them to challenge themselves and take pride in their writing. Through explicit teaching of vocabulary, grammar, and the writing process, we empower our pupils to communicate effectively, fostering both their creativity and their ability to articulate their thoughts with confidence.

Writing Implementation

At Barlby Primary School, we provide a structured and engaging English curriculum designed to encourage pupils to experiment with a variety of writing forms, from narrative and descriptive writing to persuasive and informative texts. Our writing approach integrates phonics, oracy, grammar, and creativity to build confident, skilled writers.

EYFS - In EYFS, we lay the groundwork for writing by fostering early writing skills through daily phonics lessons using the Little Wandle Phonics Scheme. In Nursery and Reception, children begin their writing journey with mark-making activities, helping them develop hand-eye coordination and an understanding of how to communicate ideas. As they progress, they begin forming letters and writing captions, simple sentences, and labels for drawings.

To find out more about EYFS and early writing, please click here.

Key Stage 1 - In Year 1 and Year 2, pupils build on these foundational skills, developing the ability to write meaningful sentences with correct punctuation in line with our Barlby Primary School Writing Targets, that can be found below. They are encouraged to use the phonemes and graphemes they have learnt in Phonics to support spelling and to express their thoughts clearly. At this stage, we ensure children begin to make inferences from texts and broaden their vocabulary through enriched language and modelled writing.

Key Stage 2 - Children in KS2 are exposed to a broader range of writing genres, including persuasive, narrative, descriptive, and informational writing. In these stages, pupils are taught to identify the skills and techniques authors use in texts and discuss the purpose of these choices. They explore the connection between audience, purpose, and language choice in their writing, which helps them to eventually develop their own authorial voice.

In order to achieve the above, we use the CLPE Power of Reading teaching sequences to inspire and motivate pupils in their writing. Each unit begins with an exploration of a model text, where children identify key writing techniques and discuss their purpose. Over time, pupils gain confidence in applying these techniques to their own writing.

Oracy and Speaking and Listening - We recognise that oracy plays a key role in writing development. At Barlby Primary School, we prioritise speaking and listening across all year groups as these skills help build confidence and check understanding. We incorporate ‘Talk Partners’ and ‘Say it, Hold it, Write it’ strategies into every writing lesson to ensure that pupils have ample opportunities to orally explore what they would like to write. By using shared discussions and collaborative activities, pupils develop a deeper understanding of language patterns, grammar, and punctuation. These discussions support pupils in refining their writing skills and help them gain confidence in selecting the appropriate writing techniques for different tasks.

SPaG and Handwriting - Grammar and Standard English are essential components of our writing curriculum and are taught systematically throughout our school. In each lesson, grammar is explicitly taught and integrated into writing activities so that pupils understand how sentence structure affects their writing. We also teach explicit SPaG sessions to teach, recap and assess. Handwriting and clear presentation are focused on throughout all lessons in our curriculum. For stand-alone handwriting sessions, we use the Little Wandle Phonics Scheme from EYFS to Year 2 and the Teach Handwriting Scheme from Year 3 to Year 6.