Writing
At Mount Pleasant Primary School, we aim to develop the following in all children:
- Use, learn, develop and access a rich and varied vocabulary.
- To have a secure awareness of audience and the ability to adapt their language and style for different purposes, genres and audiences, helping them express themselves with assertiveness and pride.
- The ability to use spelling, grammar and punctuation (GPS) accurately when writing and speaking.
- A sound understanding of the importance of Standard English and the ability to use it where appropriate, demonstrating respect.
- Use legible, fluent handwriting, which can also be adapted for a variety of purposes.
- The chance to plan, draft, edit and improve their written work, responding to feedback positively, so that they understand that this is a natural process that will follow them through life whenever they write for different purposes.
Mount Pleasant Writing Curriculum
As a school, we use Jane Considine’s ‘The Write Stuff’ approach. The writing genre is modelled and taught explicitly through a mixture of Experience Days and Sentence Stacking lessons, where the specific skills and techniques are explained and modelled with the children before they attempt to use independently. Experience Days offer the children opportunities to engage with drama, visual literacy, gather ideas using the FANTASTICS or independent research. Primarily, the outcome of these experiences is to expose the children to a broad range of rich vocabulary, giving them the tools and the confidence to generate their own ideas, many of which link to the FANTASTICS.
Appropriate GPS objectives are taught and modelled within the context of the writing unit, but staff may choose to focus upon a specific skill discretely within a lesson. Years 1- 6 all have knowledge organisers, which are accessible to staff and students and reflect the expectations of the year group in terms of grammar and punctuation.
At the end of the unit, an independent write is carefully planned for, giving the children the opportunity to apply skills learned and to write at length. This writing is recorded in the pupils’ Learning Adventure book; sometimes, children produce a draft piece before presenting their final version.
Children are given the opportunity to edit their work: by making corrections to their spelling, punctuation and grammar; adding in punctuation to clarify meaning; improving sentences to show their full potential; and adding in extra detail to improve their writing from a reader’s perspective. 
Below you will find information about the progression of writing within our curriculum.
Writing at Mount Pleasant