Our intent is to provide a rich, purposeful, and inspiring writing curriculum that:

🌱 Develops the Whole Child

Writing enables pupils to express emotions, beliefs, and imagination. Through poetry, narrative, and reflective writing, children explore spiritual and moral themes, developing empathy, gratitude, and an appreciation of beauty in the written word.

🌍 Connects Learning to Real Purpose

Every writing unit has a clear purpose and audience. Pupils write to inform, persuade, entertain, and reflect — linking learning to authentic outcomes such as publishing for display, presenting to the community, or sharing with real readers beyond the classroom.

🌤️ Embraces Outdoor and Experiential Learning

We believe inspiration for writing should come from the world beyond the classroom. Outdoor writing opportunities — from forest storytelling and descriptive nature writing to recounts of local visits — encourage pupils to observe, describe, and respond to the environment with curiosity and creativity.

🤝 Builds Community and Cultural Connection

Writing is used as a bridge to connect pupils with their local community and cultural heritage. Through projects linked to local history, significant people, and shared events, pupils see how their voices contribute to the wider world. Collaborative writing, performances, and partnerships with parents and local groups strengthen these connections.

🌟 Enriches and Empowers

Our writing curriculum is language-rich and inclusive, ensuring every child has access to high-quality models and ambitious vocabulary. Enrichment experiences — such as author visits, library links, cross-curricular writing days, and digital publication — ignite enthusiasm and show pupils that writing is a lifelong skill with real power and joy.

At our Christ Church C of E primary school, writing is taught through a structured, text-rich curriculum that explicitly connects reading, speaking, and writing. We ensure that all pupils develop the necessary transcription and composition skills to become confident, fluent, and creative writers.

1. The Instructional Framework: ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’

We utilise the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ model of gradual release to scaffold learning and build independent, successful writers:

• ‘I Do’ (Explicit Modelling): Teachers explicitly model the writing process. Through “thinking aloud,” live writing, and high-quality teacher demonstrations, teachers expose children to the inner thinkings of a writer—focusing on grammar choices, vocabulary selection, and self-correction.
• ‘We Do’ (Guided & Shared Practice): Pupils and teachers collaborate to create texts together. This shared writing phase allows children to practice new skills safely, contribute ideas, and receive immediate verbal feedback from the teacher.
• ‘You Do’ (Independent Application): Once secure, children independently plan, draft, edit, and publish their own pieces of writing, applying the structures and techniques practiced in the earlier stages.

2. The Writing Process

Children are explicitly taught to navigate a formal writing process.

• Planning: Children gather ideas, select vocabulary, and organise their thoughts using scaffolds such as story maps, boxing-up grids, and structural toolkits.
• Drafting: Children write their first attempts, focusing on stamina, sentence structure, and the integration of newly acquired grammar and vocabulary skills.
• Editing: Editing is treated as a natural and positive part of being a writer. Children are taught to proofread for spelling or punctuation errors and edit for impact, using age-appropriate checklists and polishing pens to refine their work.
• Publishing: To celebrate success and give writing true purpose, children regularly publish their final pieces. This may involve writing in best presentation books, creating class anthologies, or displaying their work on school celebration boards.

3. Pedagogy: Talk for Writing

To support children’s language development and structural understanding, we use the Talk for Writing approach across the school. This framework enables children to internalise the language patterns of storytellers and authors before they are expected to write. The journey moves through three distinct phases:

• Imitation: Children learn a high-quality model text by heart using actions, visual story maps, and oral rehearsal. This builds a deep bank of vocabulary and sentence structures. Children analyze the text to create a toolkit for that specific genre.
• Innovation: Using the ‘I do, we do’ philosophy, teachers guide children to adapt the model text. Through shared writing, children alter aspects of the story or text type, building confidence in manipulating language.
• Invention: During the final ‘You do’ phase, children draw upon their internalized patterns and skills to write an entirely independent piece for a specific audience and purpose.

4. Themed Topics & Cross-Curricular Connections

Writing is not taught in isolation; it is deeply embedded within our termly topics. By linking writing directly to a broader topic (such as The Ancient Egyptians,  or Space), we provide children with a meaningful, immersive, and purposeful context for their work.

• Purposeful Contexts: Children apply the genres learned in English lessons to write for real purposes within foundation subjects. For example, a child might apply persuasive writing in a letter to the head teacher for a residential to Greece or draft a historical diary entry from a Roman soldier.

5. Vocabulary and the Learning Environment

• Rich Vocabulary: High-quality model texts expose children to adventurous and sophisticated language. Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary is explicitly taught, mapped, and actively encouraged within daily writing.
• Working Walls/Learning Lines: Classroom environments feature English Working Walls/Learning lines. These mirror the ‘I do, we do, you do’ journey, displaying visual story maps, co-created toolkits, teacher live-modelling examples, and word banks that children can access independently.

6. Feedback, Editing, and Assessment

• Live Feedback: Teachers prioritise live verbal feedback during lessons, guiding children during the ‘We do’ and ‘You do’ phases to correct errors and elevate their writing in real-time.
• Proofreading and Editing: Children are explicitly taught how to proofread for spelling or punctuation mistakes and how to edit (purple polish) for impact, using age-appropriate checklists and purple polishing pens to refine their work.

Alongside writing, pupils are taught spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting explicitly and in sequence. These are not add-ons. When the technical skills of writing are secure, children are free to concentrate on what they want to say rather than on how to get it onto the page.

Spelling is taught systematically from Year 2 onwards, building on the phonic knowledge established through Little Wandle. Grammar is taught in the context of real writing, so that pupils understand not just what a technique is called but what it does for a reader. Handwriting is taught from Reception, with the aim that every child writes legibly, fluently and without conscious effort by the end of Key Stage 2.

Talk underpins everything we do in English. Before children write well, they need to think clearly and say what they mean out loud.

Pupils are taught to listen carefully and build on what others have said, to explain their thinking and justify an opinion, to disagree respectfully, and to speak with clarity and confidence to a range of audiences. They perform poetry, take part in debate, present their work to others, read aloud in class and in worship, and contribute to discussion across every subject.

• Write with clarity, creativity, and confidence across a range of purposes.
  

• Develop a spiritual awareness of their own and others’ perspectives through reflective and expressive writing.
  

• Draw inspiration from outdoor and community experiences to enhance imagination and authenticity.
  

• Understand that their writing can influence, inform, and inspire real readers.
  

• Experience a rich and connected curriculum that values the power of language to shape thought, identity, and community.

As a result of our writing curriculum, pupils at our school will:

By the end of Year 6, our pupils write with clarity, purpose and a sense of audience. They can adapt their writing to the task in front of them, edit their own work critically, and use the technical skills of writing accurately enough that their meaning is never in doubt. They speak and listen with confidence. Above all, they understand that writing is a way of making themselves heard.

To find out more about writing at Christ Church, please speak to your child’s class teacher or contact the school office on 020 8660 7500.