At Flanshaw school we place a high importance on children developing a life-long love of writing and strive to provide a rich and inspiring English curriculum for this to be achieved. We believe it is vital that our children develop the skills and knowledge not only to be ‘secondary school ready’ but to go on to become confident and effective communicators in the outside world. We want the children to feel enthusiastic and passionate about writing.  We strive for the children at Flanshaw to be able to communicate confidently and effectively, not just in writing lessons but in every area of the curriculum.

Our aims for the teaching and learning of writing are that all children should:

• Be able to write effectively, for different purposes and audiences and for enjoyment.
• To write with neat handwriting, correct spelling and accurate punctuation and grammar.
• Be able to communicate effectively and with confidence using Standard English.

Our Writing Curriculum, devised in accordance with the recent Ofsted subject review for writing, clearly outlines the knowledge and skills pupils gain at each stage of their learning journey.  Clear expectations are set out for the end of each year group in terms of writing composition, sentence construction, punctuation, spelling and handwriting.  We have carefully sequenced the knowledge and skills so that pupils can consolidate their skills and make progress over time.  We have high academic ambition for all of our pupils and we adapt this curriculum accordingly to meet the needs of all our children.  At the end of each writing unit, the ‘review and reteach’ concept is used to tackle any sentence level, grammar and punctuation misconceptions the pupils may have. 

High-quality, inspiring core texts are at the heart of our writing curriculum and these are used to inspire and stimulate writing. Each writing outcome has a clear purpose and audience and age-related models are accessed by pupils so that they have a sound understanding of age-related expectations.  Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing principle of ‘imitating’ the text is used so that pupils can fully internalise the text. The pupils then use the principles behind the teacher model to scaffold their own piece of writing.  A highly structured programme of editing and drafting is then undertaken before writing is published.

Leaders have invested heavily in new writing books that increase their motivation to write and support letter formation and cursive handwriting.  The pupils are expected to use their best handwriting and always take pride in their work.