Intent
At Riversdale Primary School, the teaching of writing aims to inspire a love of the subject and equip pupils with the skills necessary to communicate effectively and accurately across a range of contexts, preparing them for secondary education and beyond.
We seek to develop pupils' ability to express ideas clearly, creatively, and purposefully, adapting their writing to suit different audiences and purposes. Central to this is the expansion of pupils' vocabulary, enabling them to enhance their writing by selecting words with precision, as well as applying relevant grammatical concepts suited to each genre. This is achieved through engagement with rich, diverse, and high-quality texts, where pupils encounter models of excellent writing that entertain, inform, and persuade, inspiring them to experiment with language, structure, and style.
We also aim to instil in pupils that writing is a process - one that involves drafting, editing, and refining, rather than producing a final piece in a single sitting. This approach not only builds their confidence and independence as writers, but also helps them become adaptable, developing their "writer’s voice" to suit different contexts and purposes. Finally, we aim to support pupils in ensuring that handwritten work is clear, legible, and presented with pride, reinforcing the value of presentation alongside content.
Through this process, we equip pupils with the tools to write thoughtfully and creatively, both in school and in the wider world.
Implementation
Writing
In September 2024, the school adopted The Write Stuff approach to teaching writing. The Write Stuff is not a scheme; it is a way to liberate learners so that they have a complete set of tools and structures that can be applied to their writing in all contexts. The system arms both teachers and pupils with the knowledge and understanding of what to write and how to write.
Over their time at the school, children will write a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry pieces. To facilitate this, we use high-quality stimuli, including images, music, short film clips, picture books and longer texts, which are used to engage the imagination, before moving on to vocabulary exploration, sentence craft and creative writing.
In the teaching sequence, there are three different types of lessons; writing lessons, experience lessons and independent writing lessons. The teaching sequence for each unit may be different depending upon the content, but this is outlined at the start of each unit. Immersive experience lessons, including school trips, aim to develop a wide vocabulary bank and a deeper understanding of related concepts that will act as a foundation for the writing process.
A writing lesson consists of up to three ‘learning chunks’. Each learning chunk consists of:
During lessons, pupils are taught through three zones of writing which form the Writing Rainbow.
The Fantastics are intentionally introduced from the Early Years, to build pupil vocabulary and enable children to develop a wide range of words to express themselves with contextual accuracy and precision. The introduction of each Grammaristic lens is carefully planned in line with the National Curriculum, whilst the Boomtastics are introduced at different Key Stages, based on their level of complexity.
This progression is carefully planned to ensure that children leave us with a wealth of techniques, as well as the flair and grammatical understanding needed to communicate effectively in various written formats, wherever their future takes them. Furthermore, writing opportunities are planned across the curriculum to ensure that pupils understand the significance of their learning in a wider context. For example, pupils will write up investigations in Science, recount events in History or describe processes in Geography.
Once pupils have drafted a piece of writing, they are guided through a process of editing in which they reflect upon and assess their work, looking for ways in which is can be improved in relation to accuracy, and/or deepened in terms of quality.
Finally, once a term, pupils will select their favourite piece of writing to publish, allowing them the opportunity to celebrate their achievements, while showcasing high-quality handwriting.
The consideration of audience and purpose is a key element in writing, as well as ensuring that pupils have oppportunities to revisit prior learning in a range of contexts. As such, the school have planned each writing opportunity from Year 1 upwards (with EYFS pupils writing in relation to their weekly theme), ensuring: a clear link to the given situmulus; authentic links to other areas of the curriculum, where appropriate; a suitable combination of sentence stacking and independent writing. You can find a copy of this plan here.
Handwriting
At Riversdale Primary School, we believe that all children should to take pride in the presentation of their writing, including the development of a legible, cursive, individual handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school. To support this goal, we adopted the cursive Letter Join handwriting scheme in November 2024. As part of this, children are taught letter formation which includes a lead in and lead out mark. This decision has been made in order to reduce cognitive load for children, as all lowercase letters will start on the line, thus reducing a child's need to think about where to begin writing.
Children will begin learning to write through the development of gross/fine motor skills, drawing prewriting shapes, mark making and letter formation families in Early Years. This transitions to joined letters in Year 2, with the ultimate goal of clear, legible and joined handwriting by Year 6. In order to ensure children make rapid progress in this area, they undertake either an explicit teaching of handwriting including modelling and application, or a practise activity based on prior learning, as the starter of every writing lesson.
We actively focus on the three Ps - Posture, Pen(cil) and Paper - across the school, to support pupils in being well prepared for quality handwriting. Pupils are taught what adjustments, in relation to these, are required depending on whether they are right or left-handed and the school plans pupil seating carefully to ensure left-handed pupils are sat on the left of the desk, thus providing them with the necessary space.
Spelling
At Riversdale, we aim to create a positive culture around spelling, where pupils develop the confidence and resilience necessary for academic success. From Reception to Year 2, spelling is taught through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised scheme, in which pupils focus on segmenting decodable words using taught grapheme/phoneme correspondences, as well as memorising a range of common "tricky" words.
From Year 3, our spelling curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-recognised Ready Steady Spell by Literacy Counts to ensure that all pupils become fluent, accurate spellers. Our spelling curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, helping children secure the essential skills and strategies they need to spell confidently across the curriculum. Through engaging activities, consistent teaching routines and regular opportunities to revisit prior learning, we help children move spelling knowledge into their long-term memory. Our aim is to build confident writers who are equipped with the tools they need to communicate clearly and effectively. Spelling is taught in a clear and systematic way, with regular reviews and assessments. Additional support is provided through Ready Steady Spell: Go sessions, which offer targeted intervention for pupils who need further consolidation.
The Writing Framework (DfE, July 2025)
At our school, the writing curriculum is underpinned by our teaching and learning policy, which is rooted in cognitive science and evidence-informed practice. This ensures that we not only meet the expectations set out in the DfE’s Writing Framework (July 2025), but go beyond them in key areas, providing a rigorous, well-structured, and ambitious writing education for all pupils.
Curriculum Policies
Please find our English policies below:
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