At St Paul's, we aim that every child will leave our school being able to express themselves through writing. Writing is a key life skill which will equip our children to achieve their dreams for the future. Through the texts we explore, children will travel through time and across the globe to experience people, places and events that will inspire them to write as well as igniting a love of books and reading. The carefully planned teaching blocks and text genres represent the diversity in our school, the community and the UK (finding ways to engage the children by exploring texts with them that have protagonists and settings that reflect their lives). 

Following the national curriculum requirements, the writing curriculum progression builds clearly throughout year groups. This is embedded in geography, history, PSHE and science with writing tasks that show the children's writing skills in other subjects. One of the main aims is that writing is a way for children to express themselves and develop a sense of individual achievement, becoming authors and creating texts which they can be proud to share with others. Over time, children will develop their 'author's voice' and weave the experiences given in all subjects in the curriculum to create vocabulary-rich, creative and purposeful writing. 

In EYFS, children will first learn to express their ideas through role-play and mark-make to learn about the correspondence between written symbols and communication. They will share a variety of texts in partners, as a class and independently, using the class environment. Writing is embedded into continuous provision as well as every topic and supported by physical resources to strengthen motor skills. Opportunities for writing are carefully planned so that children are constantly surrounded by writing, texts and the space to creatively express themselves. 

In Year 1, English lessons follow a 2 week block structure. Alongside comprehension, phonics and handwriting, writing lessons focus on familiarising the children with traditional tales and the structure of a narrative and non-chronological text. In Years 2-6, English lessons follow a 3 week block structure. Texts covered have been carefully chosen and are adapted every year to suit the class and their particularly needs. The children develop their stamina for writing progressively over time, focusing on not only the content, but presentation as well.

Writing lessons teach the children key author techniques to improve their writing and  the explicit key features of text genres. This is a progression throughout the key stages, so that the children will leave KS2 with a clear understanding of the range of different genres of texts and how to write with purpose, clarityand awareness of audience.

Children will have a clear enjoyment of writing and be able to share their favourite pieces of writing, explaining why they chose these. Children will be able to identify key genre features, appropriate to their age group and will talk about their authorial choices, as they move into upper Key Stage 2, identifying why they have included certain elements based on genre, audience and purpose. Children will apply what they have learnt in English lessons to other subjects, showing their confidence in writing in curriculum subjects too. They will draw on their own experiences of the world, and texts they have explored in class to write creatively and with enjoyment. 

Pupil's skills and knowledge, when assessed by the class teacher and writing lead, will show progress from the first writing block to the second writing block - where they will apply the skills they learnt previously to write successfully and with increased independence.