At Stoneferry, children will become skilled, confident writers who can apply their skills independently to write for both pleasure and for purpose. Through the provision of a high quality education, we aim for all children to use and understand grammatical terminology and understand how and why writers use certain techniques to stimulate certain effects in their readers.

Our aim is for all of our children to explore grammar in the context of different genres to explore and understand how it can be manipulated accordingly.

We have designed the writing curriculum at Stoneferry so that children work through carefully crafted sequences of lessons which deepen their knowledge of how to use grammar to convey purpose, generate effect and consider the impact on the audience for writing.

In EYFS Children will –

• Begin writing process through hearing lots of high quality texts with a focus on language.
• Explore writing and print in the environment
• Learn that simple stories can be split into three main parts: a beginning, middle and end
• Be introduced to new and adventurous vocabulary through hearing it in a WAGOLL
• Build sentences to include newly learned vocabulary
• Use the patterns of storytelling in their own play
• Connect ideas together verbally using connectives
• Begin to innovate known stories, retelling them once they have developed deep familiarity with them with some small changes being made

In KS1 Children will—

• Continue to develop the writing sequence, showing more familiarity and confidence with the structure to familiar genres
• Be able to plan own story maps to represent known texts
• Show higher levels of confidence and independence in innovating by changing key characters, key places or key events.
• Broaden their understanding of types of language and the effect they may have on the reader
• Broaden their understanding of different types of text (genre)
• Understand how sentences are constructed to include a who and a what to create statements
• Develop knowledge of how and when to use capital letters and end of sentence punctuation such as full stops, exclamation marks and question marks.
• Explore the purpose of conjunctions in extending sentences
• Progress to applying phonics to spelling patterns and recognising suffixes and prefixes
• Extend their knowledge of tense to include forms of the simple tense for past and present along with the progressive past tense,
• Explore language for effect in expanded noun phrases

In Lower KS2 Children will—

• Extend their knowledge of audience and purpose for writing by introducing new genres
• Explore different sentence types and how they can be used for effect
• Build upon the grammatical knowledge in KS1 to explore additional coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, exploring them for time, cause and effect
• Begin to manipulate the structure of sentences to include adverbials at the start of sentences
• Understand how adverbials can explore the time and place of the events of the sentence
• Explore the differences in how information is presented when subordination is used to start sentences
• Develop an understanding of more complex in sentence punctuation such as colons to introduce a list and brackets for parenthesis
• Explore how certain words can be used as adverbs, prepositions or subordinate conjunctions depending on the word class of the words around them
• Expand noun phrases further with the addition of prepositional phrases
• Use adverbs within sentences for qualification and precision.
• Further develop understanding of tense through exploring the perfect form of verbs in contrast to the simple past
• Punctuate speech before using a reporting clause

In Upper KS2 Children will—

• Explore genres covered in more detail, exploring specific intricacies of the text type to develop a coherent piece of writing that successfully meets the intended effect
• Further build knowledge of in sentence punctuation to include parenthesis with brackets, dashes and commas, understanding the subtle yet vital differences between each type and when to use them to create desired effects
• Evaluate and edit their own writing to upskill and ensure all taught grammar is included
• Progress in skills of manipulation of sentence structure showing knowledge and understanding of all conjunctions and their uses
• Include a variety of clauses and phrases within sentences to show a wide range of adverbials (to start and to extend sentences) and relative clauses
• Use modal verbs to indicate possibility
• Identify the use of formal language versus the use of colloquialisms, evaluating when and where to use these techniques for effect
• Develop knowledge of the passive and active voice, understanding how and when each are used and how to switch between the two whilst maintaining the same information
• Use the subjunctive form to show higher level understanding of formality
• Mark the boundary between independent clauses through using higher levels of punctuation with semi colons and colons.

Support

• All pupils have opportunities to learn grammar and how to write taking into consideration their own starting points and needs.
• All children are given work that is closely matched to their abilities which does not limit them from learning about a broad range of grammatical concepts and applying them to their writing across a range of genres
• Children with complex needs follow a bespoke curriculum which includes providing opportunities for learning to take place within high interest contexts, for learning to be child-led and for a balance of direct teaching and independent exploration to take place

Sequence

• Hook— each unit begins with a high quality text to stimulate passion and enthusiasm for writing.
• Pitch appropriate model— they discuss the features that make the genre, effect and grammatical techniques used

A progressive set of SPAG and Literacy lessons teach a sequence of 2 or 3 key skills which eventually build to allow children to have a tool kit to write independently for that genre.

• Children independently apply all of their skills in writing to produce their own written outcome.