Writing in school needs a motivating stimulus; be it a high quality text, a short video or a picture. At St Michael’s we aim to promote children’s writing initially by encouraging them to talk. Articulation of children’s thoughts is central to the learning process and allows children to explore a variety of ideas before committing them to paper. It also strengthens understanding, and enables children to practise skills and build confidence.

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We regularly use drama to allow pupils to enter imaginatively into the world of texts. It enables pupils to ‘live’ the story and it is particularly good in assisting them to empathise with characters, understanding their motives, thoughts, feelings and intentions. Essentially the use of these and other techniques enriches and enhances children’s experience of the text being studied. Drama serves as one of the important initial activities that support pupils’ writing. 

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Shared writing is often used and is an effective way of scaffolding the writing process for pupils. It helps to teach them how to write and involves a gradual movement from instruction to independence. Shared writing gives a focus on the key vocabulary, sentence and text features that the children need to make progress. 

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At St Michael’s we have learning environments where children are without fear of peers’ judgements and are happy to publicly reveal and work on improvements in their own writing, redrafting their work until it is the best that it can be.   

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For more information on the National Curriculum for English, please visit:

www.gov.uk/primary-national-curriculum-english