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.
✨ Friday Favourites! 📚
Today was extra magical as the children brought in their favourite books to share with friends! From adventurous tales to heartwarming stories, it was wonderful to see their eyes light up as they talked about their beloved reads. 💛
Stories were swapped, imaginations soared, and the joy of reading was truly contagious. We loved every moment! 🌟
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🌎 World Poetry Day 🌎
Today, we celebrated World Poetry Day with a fantastic whole-school recital! Each year group showcased their talents with beautiful performances of the following poems:
🌱 Year 1 – Here is the Seed 🌱
🌙 Year 2 – The Moon🌙
🐅 Year 3 – Leap like a Leopard🐅
🤢 Year 4 – Sick!🤢
📖 Year 5 – Words are Ours📖
🍖 Year 6 – A Cautionary Verse🍖
What a wonderful way to end the day! Well done to all our amazing performers! 👏
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Very good lovely to see and they came across great thank u
Lovely xxx
👌👌👌👌👌
📚📝 In today’s Merit Assembly, we had some extra special celebrations! 🎉 We awarded certificates to our incredible Word Millionaires and Multi-Millionaires! We also celebrated our Year 6 children who took part in the Wicked Writers competition, sharing their passionate writing with Adam Jogee. Finally, we honoured our very own published authors from Young Writers! Well done to all our talented writers and readers! ✨📖
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Congratulations everyone, what an amazing achievement! 🙂 Please can we ask for your permission to use these photos in our own marketing activity? Thank you!
Well done everyone 👏👏👏
Congratulations to you all
Awe and wonder !
Our year 1 children were inspired to write some super sentences when they revealed a mythical , mighty dragon in our What’s in the box ?
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✨📚 Year 6’s Reading Bag book is just too good to put down! 📚✨
From baking on rooftops to hiding under tables, Christabel and Faizah are making the most of every moment with their graphic novel! 😆💙 We love their creativity and would love to know – where’s the most unusual place you’ve ever read a book? 🤔✨
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✨ Another fantastic session at Oracy Club! This time, it was Year 6’s turn, and they absolutely smashed it! ⭐️
With the brilliant leadership of our Oracy Ambassadors, Alfie and Elizabeth, they dived into a lively ‘Odd One Out’ challenge, sharing ideas, debating perspectives, and showcasing top-notch teamwork.
Their confidence and communication skills were on full display – we loved seeing them embrace the challenge and get stuck into meaningful discussions. Well done, Year 6! ✨
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Books so good, you can’t put them down! 📚✨ Abhinav proves that great stories can fit into any part of the day – even while brushing his teeth! 😆🪥
We love seeing our children making the most of their Reading Bags in creative ways. Keep the wonderful photos coming! ❤️
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A huge thank you to Rachael Davis and Claire Hatcher-Smith for sharing their fantastic books with us! 📚✨ The children absolutely loved You Got This! and The Mizzy Mysteries: A Skeleton in the Globe! Such inspiring stories and wonderful authors! 💛 #readingstm #englishstm #authoroftheweekstm … See MoreSee Less
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✝️Year 6 Catholic Life Pledge✝️
📚As part of our World Book Day celebrations, Year 6 ran a fantastic charity book stall, with all the books kindly donated by our families. We had an amazing selection and are so proud to have raised £187.15 for Dougie Mac! Thank you to everyone who supported us.📚
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Hi, yes it was a whole school effort! We had a brilliant number of donations – both books and money. Year 6 ran the stall for us 😄
That's incredible, thanks so much for your brilliant support! We hope you had a brilliant World Book Day! 🙌📚
Amazing amount of money raised well done everyone 👏👏👏
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