Hatfield Peverel Infant School

At Hatfield Peverel Infant School writing skills are taught creatively across all areas of the curriculum, ensuring that writing has a purpose, reinforcing our cross-curricular approach. We aim for pupils to:

• See themselves as writers from their first experience of school
• Be able to express ideas in a written form
• Use writing to communicate with others
• Use various forms of writing for different purposes
• Have an experience of rich and varied language
• Develop the necessary writing skills to be a competent writer with an understanding of the basics – spelling, grammar, handwriting and punctuation
• Have a balance between learning the mechanics of writing and opportunity to write creatively
• Develop a personal, legible style of writing

Within each writing lesson, pupils’ learning is ‘chunked’ into three distinct parts: initiate, model and enable.

The initiate stage: this is a time to inspire. Using a stimulus, pupils are immersed in a rich language discussion and activities to provide a wealth of vocabulary to aid their writing.

The model stage: this is the chunk whereby the teacher demonstrates the thoughts and processes of a writer and articulates writing choices.

The enable stage: the pupils write their sentence following the model, and greater depth writers can 'deepen the moment' where they can explore the plot point further and demonstrate their own creative sentences using their previous learning.

The pupils become familiar with The Writing Rainbow throughout EYFS and KS1. The Writing Rainbow includes Three Zones of Writing (FANTASTICs, GRAMMARISTICs and BOOMTASTICs) which are essential components to support pupils in becoming great writers.

The FANTASTICs system allows pupils to identify the nine elements that all text types are comprised of. When pupils are familiar with these nine elements, they are able to ensure that they are incorporated into their writing.

The GRAMMARISTICs cover national curriculum requirements, capturing the broad spectrum of key grammar knowledge. Discrete grammar lessons are also taught to ensure specific grammar knowledge is taught and revisited.

The BOOMTASTICs capture the ten powerful ways to add drama and poetic devices to writing. They help pupils structure their work, teaching them to showcase their writing voice, demonstrate originality and to take risks with their writing.

After completing each unit plan of work, pupils can plan and write independently a piece based on that unit, using their previous learning to create their work.