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.
🎤 Speech Fest 2025 🎤
A massive congratulations to our brilliant winners from Friday’s Speech Fest!
🥇 Leon (Y4) – Art
🥈 Mila (Y5) – Tigers
🥉 Oliver (Y6) – Motocross
The standard across the board was incredibly high so to be named a winner is a truly impressive achievement. We’re so proud of you all!
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🎤 Speech Fest Success at St Mary’s! 🎤
Today, St Mary’s proudly hosted our first ever Speech Fest competition and what a brilliant event it was! The children were asked to deliver a speech on a topic they were passionate about. Out of 180 children who auditioned, only 14 made it to today’s final!
We were honoured to welcome a fantastic panel of judges including:
⭐️The Worshipful the Mayor, Robert Bettley-Smith
⭐️Local MP, Adam Jogee for Newcastle-under-Lyme
⭐️Poet and author, Angela Marie James
⭐️Chair of Governors, Jo Kirkham
The children’s speeches were exemplary and the judges had an incredibly tough job choosing the winners. Every single participant spoke with confidence, passion and purpose.
🌟 Congratulations to all who took part and a special well done to our winners:
🥉 Oliver G – Motocross 🏍️
🥈 Mila – Tigers 🐯
🥇 Leon – Art 🎨
Also, a huge thank you to Oliver S, a St Mary’s alumni, for stepping up to be our compère for the event! What a wonderful host!🎤
A huge thank you to Staffordshire Libraries for their hospitality and for providing the perfect venue for Speech Fest! 📚
This event was a true testament to the power of oracy at St Mary’s and the incredible journey we’ve been on. It showed just how important it is for every child to have the opportunity to make their voice heard.
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Thank you so much for inviting me to be one of the judges. It was indeed very tough to decide. You have some very talented and confident children. Well done everyone 😀
So proud of Leon and Steven for taking part in the Speech Festival! Both were superb and out of 14 children, Leon took first place!! St Maria are incredibly proud of both boys and all children who took part 🥳 #englishstm #year4stm #oracystm … See MoreSee Less
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Year 1 have had lots of fun practising and performing riddles this week. Our focus text was Jack and the Beanstalk and our riddles were inspired by the main characters and important parts of the story. We ensured that we used our oracy skills by speaking clearly, faced our audience and used a loud volume. #year1stm #englishstm … See MoreSee Less
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Nice one xxx
Nice 💕💕