Writing
Vision
At our school, we believe every child is a writer. We want our children to see writing as a powerful tool for thinking, expression, and connection — a craft to be enjoyed, refined, and celebrated.
We aim to develop confident, creative, and purposeful writers who:
- Understand the whole writing process – from generating ideas to drafting, revising, and publishing with pride.
- Write with control and intention, making deliberate choices about language, structure, and audience.
- Appreciate the power of writing to inform, persuade, entertain, and inspire others.
- Take joy in writing as an act of creativity and self-expression, and see themselves as real authors with something valuable to say.
Through a rich, purposeful, and inclusive writing curriculum, we nurture children who write with voice, confidence, and authenticity, and who carry their love of writing beyond the classroom.
Our Writing Curriculum
We are teaching ...
At White Court School, we believe that our English Curriculum should instill and develop a love of literacy through reading, writing and discussion. We support pupils by encouraging the habit of reading and writing widely and often, both for pleasure and information, and developing an appreciation for our rich and varied literary heritage. Pupils are supported in the acquisition of a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and the knowledge of linguistic conventions for writing and spoken language. We want pupils to flourish, to feel empowered and to be inspired to be confident readers, writers, speakers and listeners who are able to adapt their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We aim to provide the children with varied reasons for writing as well as extended writing sessions to build their writing stamina, and believe that this not only produces higher quality writing, but allows our learners to apply their skills to a range of different contexts. We aim to inspire our children and develop a love of writing.
We teach writing by ...
When planning and teaching English at White Court School, we use the English Planning Kit, developed by Literacy Consultant Jonathan Bond. This kit has two aims. Firstly to develop children with excellent English skills and, secondly, to develop children who love the subject. This kit wishes to develop a love of all English, particularly a love of writing. The use of this kit enables us to plan and deliver the 2014 Primary National Curriculum for English coherently and effectively. It provides smaller learning steps for each year group, based on the broad objectives from the National Curriculum. Additional objectives lead to a more rounded and complete English curriculum for our school. Following the structure of the National Curriculum, the English Planning Kit is divided into four key areas which are then subdivided into fifteen strands.
Writing opportunities are planned for across the wider curriculum. We use a wide and varied selection of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire pupils and we celebrate successes regularly in class, as a school and with parents.
At White Court School, we teach children to write using cursive handwriting following Letterjoin which is a school wide scheme and is a systematic method of teaching handwriting to National Curriculum expectations. Cursive writing teaches children to join letters in words through a series of continuous flowing movements or patterns.
As a school we want to create ‘intelligent spellers’ who are interested in words and who understand how phonemes, morphemes and spelling conventions all link together in words. We have dedicated discrete teaching time for spelling as the direct teaching of spelling has proven to be the most important factor in spelling improvement. In Early Years and KS1, we follow the Little Wandle scheme to teach phonics and spelling.
The children learn ...
Because of the use of thorough and progressive planning through the Jonathon Bond Kit, our children are resilient writers who enjoy showcasing their learning through purposeful activities and regular writing opportunities. They are able to edit and improve their work through peer and self-assessment. High expectations of presentation are reflected in the work in children’s books and on displays. Children are confident to share and refine ideas through collaborative discussions. We aim for our attainment at the end of EYFS, KS1 and KS2 to be consistently higher than the National Average. By the end of Year Six, our pupils will be able to write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. They will acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of the written word. Most importantly, they will develop a love of writing and be well equipped for the rest of their education.
Learning Journey