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 delighted to announce that 13 of our pupils have been selected to have their poetry published in the Young Writers Monster Poetry anthology! 🎉
The competition challenged children to create their own imaginary monsters and bring them to life through imaginative poetry, inspiring creativity and a love of writing.
We are incredibly proud of all of our talented young writers for this fantastic achievement and cannot wait to see their work in print!
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🎤 St Mary's Speech Fest 2026 🎤
What an incredible day of speaking, listening and inspiring others!
Today, our annual Speech Fest final took place at Staffordshire Libraries, showcasing the outstanding oracy skills of our pupils. After an impressive 180 children auditioned, just 14 finalists earned the opportunity to take to the stage and share speeches on topics close to their hearts.
We were delighted to welcome an esteemed judging panel:
⭐️ Adam Jogee for Newcastle-under-Lyme MP
⭐️ Mr Murray, Headteacher of St John Fisher Catholic College
⭐️ Justine Lomas, St Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Multi-Academy Trust School Transformation Partner
⭐️ Sue Griggs, Voice 21 School Relationship Lead
Our finalists spoke with confidence, conviction and enthusiasm, making the judges' task exceptionally difficult. Each speech reflected the hard work, courage and passion of the children involved.
A huge congratulations to our Speech Fest winners:
🥉 Raiha – Swimming 🏊♀️
🥈 Trishelle – The Life of an Immigrant 🌍
🥇 Leon – Reading and Writing 📚
We would also like to thank Darius and Lilly, two former St Mary's pupils, who did a fantastic job as our compères and helped the event run so smoothly. 🎤 Thank you to St John Fisher Catholic College and Newcastle-under-Lyme School for allowing them both to attend.
A special thank you goes to Staffordshire Libraries for hosting us and providing such a wonderful setting for the occasion. 📚
Speech Fest was a fantastic celebration of pupil voice and a reminder of the importance of giving every child the confidence and opportunity to express their ideas. We are incredibly proud of every finalist who stepped onto the stage today and shared their voice with such courage and skill.
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Those pesky seagulls!! 🪶🚣 Today, Year 2 became detectives investigating a crime scene. They had to work through the clues to find out who had their lunch stolen by the naughty seagulls. We then worked through our clues to work out what the victim (Mr Grinling) looked like and why the seagulls keep targeting his lunch. This links to our English text, The lighthouse keeper’s lunch. We all had a great morning becoming detectives and finding all the secret clues! 🕵🏼♀️🔍 #englishstm #year2stm … See MoreSee Less
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