Writing

Our vision and ambition for Writing at Hemingford Grey Primary School 

In Reception, we use Drawing Club. It is a creative approach to teaching early writing, developed by early years practitioner Greg Bottrill. It is designed to inspire young children to see themselves as storytellers, build a love of books and develop the early skills they need to become confident writers. It is particularly suited to Reception and can also be used in the early part of Year 1.

What does Drawing Club look like in practice?

Drawing Club uses high-quality picture books, traditional tales, animations and other engaging stimuli to spark children's imagination. Adults bring stories to life through discussion, modelling and playful activities, encouraging children to develop their own ideas.

Children typically explore a character, imagine a setting and invent adventures. They draw their ideas and add marks, letters, words or sentences appropriate to their stage of development. The emphasis is on giving children a meaningful reason to communicate through drawing and writing.

Three important areas underpin the approach:

• Making conversation: developing speaking, listening, storytelling and vocabulary through discussion with adults and peers.
• Mark-making: strengthening fine motor control and developing early writing skills, from initial marks through to words and sentences.
• Mathematics: creating opportunities to incorporate mathematical thinking, such as counting, recognising numbers and exploring quantities, into imaginative activities.

What are the benefits for children?

Drawing Club aims to make early literacy engaging, purposeful and accessible. It helps children to:

• Develop a love of stories, books and reading.
• Expand their vocabulary and confidence in spoken language.
• Develop fine motor skills and early writing fluency.
• Exercise their imagination, creativity and problem-solving skills.
• Build confidence by sharing their own ideas and seeing themselves as capable writers.

Importantly, it gives children opportunities to develop at their own starting points. A child making meaningful marks and explaining their picture is developing important early literacy skills, just as a child beginning to write words or sentences is taking the next step in their writing journey

Drawing Club is not simply an art activity. It uses children's natural enjoyment of stories, play and imagination as a vehicle for developing the language, confidence and early writing skills that underpin future success in English.

In KS1, we continue on from Drawing Club into Curious Quests, which is a creative, imaginative approach to developing writing, designed by Greg Bottrill. It builds on the principles of Drawing Club and is particularly aimed at children in Year 1 and Year 2. It places storytelling, imagination, play and children's own ideas at the heart of literacy learning.

What does Curious Quests look like in practice?

Rather than beginning with a prescribed writing task, children are drawn into an imaginative world where they can explore ideas, solve problems, invent characters and create their own adventures. Teachers use this imaginative context to develop children's language, vocabulary, phonics, grammar and writing skills.

Learning might include:

• Imaginative adventures: children explore a shared imaginary world, using stories, questions and challenges to inspire their thinking.
• Collaborative exploration: children work together using resources such as construction materials, junk modelling, playdough and role play.
• Purposeful writing: children write because they have ideas to communicate, messages to share or stories they want to create.
• Explicit teaching: teachers identify opportunities to teach and reinforce phonics, spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary within the imaginative context.
• Independence and creativity: children are encouraged to make choices, develop their own ideas and see themselves as authors.

What are the benefits for children?

Curious Quests aims to make writing meaningful, motivating and enjoyable. It can help children to:

• Develop a genuine enthusiasm for writing.
• Build confidence in expressing their ideas.
• Extend their spoken language and vocabulary.
• Apply phonics and early grammar skills in meaningful contexts.
• Develop creativity, problem-solving and collaboration.
• Become more independent and motivated writers.

The approach also gives teachers flexibility to respond to children's interests while drawing on their professional knowledge to ensure that curriculum expectations are addressed. It can link to our continuous provision and ensure that writing is for a purpose.

Progression of writing

Key Stage 1 teachers follow a clear writing progression document linked to the National Curriculum. This ensures that the focus for each week is clearly identified and explicitly taught, providing a structured approach to developing children's writing skills. The progression document maps the teaching of grammar, punctuation, transcription (including spelling and handwriting) and cohesion, ensuring that skills are systematically revisited, developed and applied across the year groups.

This approach provides consistency across the school, enabling teachers to build on prior learning and ensure that children develop the technical knowledge and skills required to become confident, independent writers. Regular opportunities for modelling, practice, feedback and application support children in embedding these skills and using them effectively in their own writing. The progression document also supports teachers in identifying gaps in learning, planning appropriate interventions and ensuring that all children are supported and challenged to make progress towards age-related expectations.

Years 3 to 6

At Hemingford Grey Primary, we believe that every child is a writer. We are passionate about developing every child’s knowledge, motivation and confidence in their writing.   We have chosen HFL Education’s ESSENTIALWRITING as the basis of our writing curriculum for years 3-6. This is an ambitious and progressive writing scheme which provides our children with opportunities and tools to write for a range of specific purposes and authentic audiences. As a result, our children feel inspired and ready to write high-quality outcomes within the classroom but also have the knowledge, strategies and confidence to choose to write in their own lives.  We follow a two year rolling programme to ensure children access complete coverage of the curriculum without unnecessary repetition. Medium term plans include adaptations to support with delivering a well-pitched curriculum within a mixed age class.

Each year group has 13-16 teaching units, all of which use diverse and high-quality literature as good examples of writing craft and to help to motivate or inspire children to write.

ESSENTIALWRITING is fully aligned with the National Curriculum for English including writing composition, vocabulary, grammar & punctuation for each year group.  Each writing unit is progressively structured and centred around the different writing purposes: to entertain; to inform; to persuade; to discuss. 

Alongside ESSENTIALWRITING, at Hemingford Grey Primary, we have adopted the FFT phonics programme and the FFT Jungle club spelling approach as the basis of our spelling curriculum. ESSENTIALWRITING supports our children to apply this learning in context and build their spelling confidence.  Writing models reflect age-appropriate spelling objectives and children are taught how to monitor the accuracy of their writing.  Handwriting is also taught.  We have adopted a cursive handwriting approach and use Letter join to support this to ensure that every child gains sufficient fluency for writing, with knowledge of accurate letter formation and how to join letters so that they can meet the National Curriculum expectations for each key stage.