Writing at Highfield

Our Writing curriculum will allow children to develop and thrive with the transcription and composition elements of writing across all subjects.

Children will write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.

Through the delivery of ‘The Write Stuff’ programme, children will find writing engaging and enjoyable whilst being immersed in a range of exciting stimuli. This will ensure that they not only understand the purpose and importance of writing but also fundamentally enjoy the writing process. 

Ultimately, our children will leave Highfield as confident, capable and independent writers, who understand the importance of writing as a life-long skill.

‘The Write Stuff’

At Highfield Primary School, from Reception through to Year 6, we have adopted the highly successful writing programme called ‘The Write Stuff’, devised by Jane Considine.

‘The Write Stuff’ follows a method called ‘Sentence Stacking’, which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning, which they can then immediately apply to their own writing. 

It is a writing programme that brings clarity to the mechanics of writing. 

An individual lesson is based upon a sentence model, broken into three learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:

Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.

Model section – the teacher models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.

Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.

Children are then challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’, which requires them to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.

Following the completion of a ‘Sentence Stacking’ sequence, pupils then plan and write independent texts where they are able to show the writing skills that they have been developing.

Teaching writing through the ‘The Write Stuff’ approach ensures that all of our children are exposed to high quality texts, that stimulate quality responses to reading, high quality writing and purposeful speaking and listening opportunities.