English - Writing

Writing at St Leonards

Opening the Doors to a rich, engaging and ambitious writing curriculum: ‘Pitching high and including all.’

At St Leonards, we use the ‘Opening Doors’ approach to teaching writing across the school. It aims to build a rich and ambitious English curriculum, that inspires and engages children’s curiosity, while challenging them to think deeply. This approach to writing sits well within our diverse and inclusive classrooms.

We aim to challenge all children in order to build knowledge and understanding of the craft of writing, whilst giving them opportunities to be creative writers and develop their own unique writing styles.

We do not believe in simply teaching children how to write, but how to be writers.

Handwriting

• Handwriting begins in the Early Years Foundation Stage; developing core strength, sitting with a good posture and necessary fine motor control to grip and form simple shapes with accuracy.
• For many children, being taught handwriting removes the strain and discomfort of writing – rehearsal leads to fluency and the stamina required to record ideas to their potential.
• We use the Letter Join scheme to ensure a consistent approach to handwriting across all ages.
• Handwriting is taught in every English writing lesson, with the expectation that children apply this across writing in all subjects.
• We use a progressive approach to handwriting to reduce the cognitive load when creating content and applying their phonics and grammar knowledge.
• In Reception we teach children to write printed letter forms. By year 1 children are ready to learn pre-cursive letter shapes. From year 2 onwards, we introduce children to the full cursive script.