It is our intent at Paulton Infant School to provide pupils with a high-quality education in English that will teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively. We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in Literacy, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We recognise that writing is a key life skill that is crucial to a high quality education and lays the foundations for lifelong learning.

At Paulton Infant school, writing is an integral part of our curriculum and all children from EYFS to Year 2 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum. In EYFS children have access to a range of writing materials and opportunities and we aim to give the children as many real life writing opportunities as possible, for example writing shopping lists when in a shop role play set up or writing letters to Santa. This then continues into KS1 in a more structured way, where we begin to look more closely at different texts types and identify their key features before having a go at writing our own versions. At the end of each unit of work, we work towards an outcome with a specific purpose e.g. writing stories to read to EYFS children. 

As part of writing lessons, all pupils are supported to develop transcription and composition skills through high quality, engaging teaching opportunities and use of cross-curricular approaches. We place high value on oral rehearsal and children have many opportunities to speak words, sentences and series of sentences, before we expect them to write them.

In our approach to writing, we intend for pupils to be able to plan, revise and evaluate their writing at all phases of their education. This may initially be more oral based in EYFS, eg. Spotting a missing finger space and then become a more recorded approach as they move through Year 1 and Year 2 where children write and then have the opportunity to edit their original work to improve it, both with the support of the teacher and with growing independence.

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As part of our writing curriculum we also ensure that time is spent on supporting children to make links between phonics, reading and writing and endeavour for all pupils to acquire a growing vocabulary, solid understanding of grammar and the ability to spell new words effectively choosing and applying spelling patterns and rules that have been taught throughout their time in school.

(More information can be found on our Phonics page of the website).

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We have high expectations for our children and of our children and they are encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing. We use a non-cursive script across the school and use rhymes to help children to form each letter. By the time children leave us in Year 2, we encourage them to begin to use diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters.

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The letter rhymes we use at school from when children first begin learning to write letters can be found here. These can be used to support your children at home.

Phase 2 letter formation rhymes and actions

Phase 3 - coming soon (but most of these can be seen above as single letters)

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In Key Stage One (Year 1 and 2) children will learn about which letter family different letters belong to. They are grouped due to them being formed in a similar way. This document shows our 3 letter families; curly, down and zig zag. This can also be used by parents at home to support children with their handwriting.

Letter Families Document