At St. Mary’s, we believe that the ability to write with confidence and accuracy is an essential life skill. We endeavour to enable all of our children to communicate effectively in their spoken language, as well as in using the printed word in a wide range of contexts. We teach this through the ‘Sentence Stacking’ approach.
Writing is a complex process which requires many skills, such as handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, grammar, punctuation and awareness of text structure and organisation. We believe that all children should leave St. Mary’s as confident, fluent writers, with an extensive vocabulary to adequately prepare them for later life.
At St. Mary’s, we have adopted the sentence stacking approach to writing. Core to this approach is quality teacher modelling to demonstrate the key skills and composition of writing expected of the pupils in each year group and across all genres. Within writing lessons, less confident pupils are given the support and tools to enable them to achieve at an age-related standard, wherever possible. More confident writers are given ample opportunities throughout the writing process to demonstrate a greater depth of understanding through carefully planned stretch and challenge elements. In addition, they are given opportunities to write in genres of their choice. To ensure that all pupils are appropriately challenged throughout each writing lesson, teachers and learning support assistants use targeted questioning and effective in-the-moment feedback.
Across the school, we use high quality, language-rich texts which enthuse and challenge pupils, in addition to using high quality video stimulus and embarking on their real life experiences, where possible. This approach gives pupils opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences, which inspires them to write. The use of Alan Peat sentence types is embedded from Year 2 to Year 6 to develop sentence structure and text composition. These sentence types are progressive.
Each unit of work begins with an experience lesson to ‘hook’ the pupils into learning. Further experience lessons may be included throughout the unit to sustain engagement. Throughout a unit, key skills are taught and practised in context. Pupils are encouraged to ‘talk’ through their ideas, share their ideas and magpie the ideas of others. Pupils are given plenty of opportunities to self-edit within each lesson as demonstrated in the editing progression document.
After each sentence stacked piece of writing, an application write is planned to allow the children to write independently and apply learned skills.
As a Voice 21 school, we model a high standard of talk and writing to secure high expectations. Pupils are given ample opportunities throughout the curriculum to develop their speaking and listening skills, which in turn has a positive impact on extended writing. Writing is moderated using the CtKCC writing moderation tool.
The importance of cursive handwriting, as outlined in the ‘Magic Link’ handwriting scheme is enforced in all subject areas to promote legibility, neat presentation and self-pride.
Spelling is taught progressively across the school through Spelling Shed, which includes learning of the Statutory Spelling Lists for each year group.
Purposes for Writing
Writing Genre Progression
Exciting Sentences
Throughout the school, we are using a system for teaching writing developed by the educational specialist Alan Peat. We teach children how to use particular types of sentences, which have a handy name, so that children understand what is meant whichever class they are in in the school. The sentence types are designed to help children to write exciting, sophisticated pieces of writing that use the right tone for their purpose. Some sentence types are more appropriate to non-fiction, and others, to fiction writing.
We are very proud of these boys in St Joseph's class. They have made some brilliant stories up in drawing club of how we can get rid of the big bad wolf! We have written the code r-e-d to help the wolf disappear! #oracystm #englishstm #drawingclub #writingstm … See MoreSee Less
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🎙️ Introducing St Mary’s Oracy Club!🎙️
Today, our brand-new Oracy Club held its first session with Year 5 and it was a huge success! 🌟 Mila and Angel from Year 6 did a brilliant job leading the group this week and are excited to guide the group each week. Year 5 can’t wait to explore thought-provoking topics and work in new groupings every session! 💬✨
#OracyStM #Year5StM #Year6StM #EnglishStM … See MoreSee Less
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This week, in English, we have been writing a non-chronological report and what better topic to write about than our wonderful school! Our target audience was prospective parents who are thinking of sending their children in September 2026 and would like to find out more about our school!
#writingstm #englishstm #year3stm … See MoreSee Less
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🎭✨ This morning, St Mary’s marked National Poetry Day with a fantastic whole-school assembly! Each year group took to the stage to perform a poem they had been during their drama slots and every single child delivered their piece with confidence and flair. Their hard work and brilliant oracy skills shone through!
The poems performed were:
❤️🧺 Year 1 – Little Red Riding Hood
🦉🐱 Year 2 – The Owl and the Pussycat
🌿🐞 Year 3 – Nature Trail
🐉✨ Year 4 – The Tale of Custard the Dragon
🎉🗣️ Year 5 – The Word Party
⚠️📜 Year 6 – A Cautionary Verse
A huge well done to all our pupils – what a wonderful celebration of poetry! 🎬🎭
#NationalPoetryDaystm #Englishstm #poetrystm #oracystm #year1stm #year2stm #year3stm #year4stm #year5stm #year6stm … See MoreSee Less
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