“Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.” Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

Intent

At Anthony Bek Community Primary School, we intend to create confident writers who develop a love of writing. We aim for all our children to be independent writers, building on a range of skills as they work through each journey of writing and for them to be able to write for a range of purposes and audiences. We believe in a gradual and well-supported writing journey, where children can take inspiration from quality literature and teacher modelling. Our learners are challenged and encouraged to take risks, view mistakes as part of the learning process and work collaboratively with others to excel their writing.

Anthony Bek Community Primary School:

• Recognises the effect that a confident, fluent and coherent understanding of English will have on a pupil’s progress, both inside and outside of the school environment.
• Understands how a strong grounding in English will impact the future learning and development of a pupil in all aspects of their life.
• Provides a balanced and broad curriculum, which encompasses writing practice, including handwriting, spelling, writing for different styles, purposes, and audiences, as well as focussing on spoken English, reading, grammar and pronunciation.
• Ensures that all staff members are aware of planning, assessment, teaching and learning requirements for the English curriculum.
• Ensures that all pupils have some concept of the journey to produce successful writing: practise skills, plan, draft, revise, edit and share.

Implementation

As a school, we have developed an evidence-informed approach to teaching writing, which roots itself in the expectations of the national curriculum and the Simple View of Writing. Supporting our pupils to succeed in the fundamental transcription skills of writing is our greatest priority. 

Handwriting at Anthony Bek

Handwriting is discretely taught regularly across school. In Early Years and KS1, Read Write Inc Phonics is used to support the instruction of handwriting, including letter formation (print). They also complete discrete handwriting sessions too. In Year 2, when ready, pupils will be supported in the transition to cursive handwriting. Explicit horizontal and diagonal joins are taught and applied to vocabulary, including the Year 1 and 2 Tricky words list, where possible. In KS2, Letterjoin is used to provide a progressive handwriting curriculum that allows pupils to apply their skills to a range of contexts: wider curriculum activities, dictation and spelling.

All classes from Year 1- 6 follow a specific lesson design in line with The Writing Framework’s recommendations:

Step 1- Warmup (Gross and/or Fine Motor Skills)

Step 2- Pencil Grip/Posture 

Step 3- Teacher Model (using metacognitive strategies)

Step 4- Practice

Step 5- Edit and improve

Additional Support

- Pencil Grips

- Triangular Pencils

- Fine and gross motor skills interventions

- Additional Handwriting Interventions focusing on letter formation/ explicit joins that the child finds tricky.

- Appropriate handwriting scaffold in line with the child’s ability.

At Anthony Bek, we follow the Read Write Inc. Spelling scheme. This scheme is for children in Years 2 to 6 who have completed Read Write Inc. Phonics. The spelling programme makes sense of the most complex alphabetic code in the world - 150 spellings of 44 speech sounds; builds upon teaching strategies and spelling activities from RWI Phonics and is organised into daily, 20 minute, well-paced lessons. Teachers check learners’ understanding systematically through formative assessment and regular summative assessments which inform future teaching and ‘Rapid Recap’ sessions/weeks. KS2 pupils also take responsibility for their own learning through the use of ‘Log Books’. This is where any spellings that are incorrect in spelling (or wider curriculum subjects) are logged and pupils are given regular opportunities to work collaboratively with their peers on getting these correct.

The reasoning behind the use of this scheme is as follows: 

• To enable to allow us meet the spelling expectations of the National Curriculum 2014

• To raise standards in spelling

• To provide consistency and progression in the teaching of spelling

• To help support children to enable them to be more confident at spelling.

Children learn the routines and behaviours for each activity, and practise these until they use them automatically. This allows them to focus on what matters most – learning to spell.

Additional Support

Children who may struggle with spelling are supported through our streamed spelling groups. This allows all learners to confidently access learning at their own level which supports progress and a feeling of success. 

Anthony Bek Writing Journey

Writing in the Early Years 

We are thrilled to introduce our new approach to writing in EYFS. Drawing Club is an initiative that integrates drawing activities into the learning curriculum, particularly aimed at young children in Early Years. It leverages the natural inclination of children to express themselves through art, using this as a bridge to develop their writing skills. Our Early Years team uses a range of inclusive, high quality texts to drive the learning each week. 

Writing in Year 1

We are  pleased to introduce our approach to writing in Year 1: Curious Quests. This approach takes the magic of drawing club from EYFS into Year 1 in a progressive, yet enjoyable, way.  This focusses on the key areas of transcription and does not expect specific text types as its outcome. Like EYFS, a range of high quality story books are used to drive the imaginative and engaging writing lessons.

Writing in Years 2-6

As our pupils transition into Year 2, our writing focusses on genre specific outcomes whilst still focussing heavily on the fundamental, grammar skills. To ensure all pupils are confident in grammar and sentence structure, all our pupils in these year groups complete the Grammarsaurus 'Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar' (PVPG) unit of learning in September. This is a multi-sensory approach to teaching grammar in both discrete and applied contexts. This unit provides concrete support for Year 2 learners as they start to become more independent writers. This can also be used as an intervention to support writing further up the school.  

Once the PVPG unit is complete, our pupils begin their journeys of writing. Each journey consists of 3 to 3.5 weeks of learning which follows the following structure: immerse, grammar skills, plan, draft, edit, share/ publish. Teachers provide all learners with a range of writing opportunities across each writing journey: discrete and applied grammar skills; shared planning; shared writing and independent writing. Scaffolds are slowly removed to allow children to confidently write independently, accurately and creatively. As part of our coverage, we repeat  genres (coloured red) each year to ensure progression in confidence, skills and independence. 

Please see below our updated Writing Coverage for September 2026.