Writing
At Hillcroft, we intend for every child to be equipped with high standards of writing skills required for life at, and beyond school; they will be future-proof, allowing them to meet and exceed the modern-day expectation. Teaching is sequenced progressively throughout the years, as well as within each year, to ensure that skills are being re-visited, embedded and built upon. We ensure that all children are given a clear and motivational purpose to their writing, allowing them to practise the skills needed for different audiences.
We have purposefully tailored our curriculum to meet the needs of our local curriculum and trends across the school; closing the vocabulary gap and embedding a solid understanding of sentence composition. We encourage the use of exciting vocabulary by using high quality stories and texts that children can draw upon to create their own. Children are taught the correct use of grammar, with the correct terminology, to apply to their writing.
In Early Years, we follow a bespoke GLF curriculum for writing which ensures children are taught at a developmentally appropriate level. In KS1 and and KS2, children are following the National Curriculum, learning to write creatively. We use the Herts For Learning Essentials writing curriculum, which is an ambitious and progressive primary scheme built to develop skilled and successful writers. Hooked with high quality literature, it helps teachers plan in order to guide children to write for specific purposes and authentic audiences. This innovative scheme encourages the progression in knowledge of language, grammar and vocabulary where children can feel inspired to write to the best of their ability.
Herts Essentials allows children to develop their writing skills through use of role play, paired and small group activities, guided learning and independently.
Pupil Voice:
We like thinking of different words. We use our sound mats to help spell words. Ruby, EYFS
I like that I get to write our own sentences and make it up and do our own. My favourite piece was about the Great Fire of London.
Ava, Year 2
I like how you can use your imagination and really explore ideas. I enjoyed writing a biography of a pharaoh.
Prathiksh, Year 5
I like using my imagination and creating my own ideas. I enjoyed writing my own escape story. I have improved my choice of adjectives and description.
Finnley, Year 6
My favourite writing has been Stone Age Boy because I like the Stone Age and the story is really funny. I’m proud that my writing is really neat.
Bradley, Year 3
Progression of Skills and Knowledge:
At Hillcroft Primary School, we follow the National Curriculum. From this, we ensure that skills and knowledge are taught in the appropriate year groups to ensure progression and sequencing.
Across Early Years, to ensure progression from the newly published Early Years Framework into KS1, we follow the revised and updated July 2021 version of Development Matters. In our Nursery, children are aged three and four, and so the progression maps show the objectives related to Three and Four year-old objectives. However, some children join after just turning three, therefore, with these children and following rigorous assessment of starting points, it may be deemed necessary to look at the Birth to Three objectives too.
For more information on this, please see the Nursery and Reception year group pages.
Below are links to our Progression of Skills and Knowledge documents.
