Curriculum Intent 

At St. Mary’s, the teaching of writing provides our children with the ability to communicate, building on the spoken word. This critical skill enables our children to function, engage and contribute to our society.  

Speaking and Listening are driving forces throughout the curriculum and staff seek every opportunity to build upon children’s vocabulary providing them with rich language, allowing them to articulate their thoughts. Children are then able to rehearse what they are going to write about and discuss in depth what they have read.  

The physical demands of writing are supported from our Early Years teaching and beyond through development of gross and fine motor dexterity. We also dedicate time to develop the correct formation of letters. A range of key habits, including posture and pencil grip are established and sustained so that handwriting becomes fluent and effortless. Pride in all written presentation is promoted and valued at all times.  

Our core-text approach to the curriculum promotes a ‘writer’s ear’ – this is to encourage children to take ownership of their writing, building upon their reading skills as they proof-read work, and edit and improve.  

The love of writing is promoted throughout the school.  

Practitioners expect the highest of standards, in a supportive manner. Growth mindset runs alongside this, encouraging a ‘can do’ attitude by all.  

Our writing curriculum is underpinned by the following key principles: 

1. Purposeful Writing: We emphasise the importance of writing for a range of audiences and purposes. By exposing children to different genres—narrative, persuasive, informative, and poetic—we cultivate their ability to adapt their voice and style. 

2. Cultural Relevance: Our curriculum incorporates diverse authors and texts, reflecting the rich tapestry of cultures and backgrounds of our pupils and the wider community. This ensures that every child sees themselves represented in the writing they study and aspire to create. 

3. Fostering Creativity: We believe that creativity is at the heart of effective writing. Our intent is to create immersive experiences that inspire children to explore their imaginations and develop original ideas. 

4. Continuous Progression: We have designed a coherent progression of skills from Reception through to Year 6, ensuring that each stage builds upon previous knowledge and experiences. This way, every child can make continual advancements in their writing abilities. 

Curriculum Aims 

Whole School Aims	In English…
To have Christ at the centre of everything we do.  To provide opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident, resilient, successful & motivated learners with high aspirations who know how to make a positive and transformational contribution to their local community and wider global society.	At St. Mary’s, we provide children with a high-quality English curriculum to enable our children to live life to the full. We teach our children to speak, read and write fluently as these are they key skills needed to spread the Word of God and make Christ known to the world.  We have high expectations for our children, ensuring we provide opportunities for them to develop their God given talents in an ever-changing society.
To be firmly rooted in the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.  Inspired by Pope Francis, St. Mary’s Curriculum encourages our pupils to grow in self-awareness and become advocates of social justice.	Throughout our curriculum, we provide opportunities for children to ask questions, debate, research and present information for specific purposes in line with Catholic Social Teaching.  Speaking and listening opportunities allow children to consider SMSC themes relating to tolerance, prejudice and leadership. Through our reading curriculum, children understand their own identify and develop empathy with others.
To challenge all pupils, regardless of disadvantages or special needs, to be the greatest example of themselves.  Through experiences both inside and outside of the classroom, pupils are provided with a purpose and relevance for learning, which allows them to develop their own personal strengths and interests.	In our English curriculum, children have opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audience, including sharing work with other classes, writing parts of the school newsletter and writing to different organisations. All our staff have high expectations of what our children can achieve and work to inspire a love of writing. Staff are reading role models and actively promote reading for pleasure, developing a life-long love of reading in our children. Opportunities for children to apply their learning outside of the classroom are regularly planned into our English curriculum, for example Year 5 participate in a Royal Northern College of Music production.
St Mary’s Curriculum develops the key skills necessary for all our pupil and promotes high expectations of standards and enjoyment in Reading, Writing and Maths across all subject areas.	Communication skills are taught throughout the whole school curriculum and are enhanced through high quality texts in our reading and writing lessons. Oracy is integral to each curriculum area and opportunities for drama are regular incorporated into our lessons. Our early reading, led by phonics is integral to promoting high expectations and standards across the school. This is supported by a rich reading for pleasure pedagogy.
To develop pupils with a broad and lasting knowledge of subject specific vocabulary.	We provide our children with an ambitious vocabulary to enable them to communicate clearly. We teach tier 2 and 3 words explicitly to support children to articulate their learning in each of our curriculum subjects, and ensure that opportunities for cross-curricular writing enable children to showcase their knowledge.
To empower pupils to respect each other and themselves, show respect and understanding for people of all faiths, race and gender, and for all living things, promoting stewardship and to ensure all pupils are well prepared for life in a rapidly changing world.	Through using a range of high quality texts with relevant themes, we teach children about injustice and ways that this can be overcome and provide opportunities for children to develop empathy with the characters they encounter. All children at St. Mary’s leave Year 6 as a respectful and effective communicator.

Curriculum Implementation 

At  St. Mary’s, we follow a core text approach for our teaching of writing. Each year group has 5-6 high quality, modern, engaging texts to study across the year to engage, motivate and inspire our community of readers and writers. The texts are carefully selected in order to provide our children with positive and engaging reading experiences, further supporting our passion to develop all children’s love of reading, which can be accessed by all. As most of the texts involve moral dilemmas, topical issues and character relationships, it encourages our children to be emotionally engaged in their learning, further developing their social and emotional understanding. The selected texts are taken from CLPE core texts and cover a range of authors and different styles to expose children to high quality models of excellence, with different stylistic features, to help develop their own writing as authors. Our core texts provide a supportive structure for teachers, which identifies how to fully engage with the text, as a vehicle for developing children’s love of writing.  

Our writing curriculum has a clear progression of knowledge and skills, focusing on development of:  

• Reading and Phonics: Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Strategies 

• Vocabulary, Grammar, Punctuation (and Spelling) and Extended Language Competency  

Our progression grids show the skills and knowledge that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met at the end of each key stage.  

Writing in the EYFS begins with the development of the pre-requisite skills, including the physical development of gross and fine motor skills. Children are encouraged to mark-make within different environments and to understand that marks have a meaning. Letter recognition and then formation is taught systematically. The letter size and positioning is then refined, alongside the understanding of phoneme to grapheme correspondence.  

Handwriting is a priority. This continues to be refined into Year 1 and then letter joins are gradually introduced in Year 2.  

We teach our children to grasp the meaning behind letters, words and sentences. Key concepts alongside this, include the teaching of spelling and grammar. Grammar is taught in content to assist children with applying these rules into their writing and is reinforced throughout the curriculum. Spelling is taught discretely following the Little Wandle Bridge into Spelling programme and Rising Stars Spelling. These systematic lessons are designed to support all children, including bilingual pupils (as they are exposed to the rules of the English language) and SEND pupils.  

The teaching of writing places central focus on the purpose and audience of the text, ensuring that the writing is meaningful, preparing our children for the wider world.  

Continuous Professional Development in writing is prioritised to ensure that all staff feel fully supported in delivering writing lessons, enabling all children to reach their God given potential.  

Our curriculum is structured to ensure it meets the needs of all of our children, taking into account the context of our local area. We prioritise early identification of communication needs through WELCOMM. Formative assessment is used skilfully to ensure that staff know what our pupils understand, adapting subsequent lessons as necessary. Regular opportunities for writing moderation are used across phases to support summative judgements at our three assessment points throughout the year, using our writing assessment framework.  

Curriculum Impact 

The impact of the school’s Writing curriculum can be seen in  

· the quality and breadth of the work children produce in their books  

· the knowledge and cultural capital they acquire to succeed in life  

· the knowledge they share when talking about their learning – they know more and are able to do more than when they started  

· the learning environment  

· the children’s understanding of what it takes socially, emotionally, spiritually and culturally to be active citizens in building a better world through Writing  

· internal assessments and national tests  

· their preparedness for their next stage of education  

· their ability to read Writing relevant texts to an age-appropriate level and fluency  

We strive for all children to attain in-line with, or to exceed, age-related expectations in Writing. Teachers use on-going assessment to monitor the children’s progress against key objectives. The Writing leader monitors Writing across the school to evaluate the impact of the curriculum on children’s learning and progress in Writing.  

Our commitment to an outstanding writing curriculum at St. Mary’s RC Primary School ensures that all children are given the opportunity to thrive as writers. We take pride in nurturing a generation of enthusiastic, skilled, and confident writers who are prepared to communicate and contribute meaningfully to society.