At Holywell, writing is woven throughout the whole of our curriculum. Throughout our children’s time at Holywell, our aim is to teach the children to find their voice as a writer. We will provide opportunities and the tools and techniques in order for them to develop their own style, confidence and independence. We want our children to know how to write and we model how to construct pieces of writing in order for the children to be able to write successfully. Progression of skills is built upon each year and a developing vocabulary is a key focus. The teaching of writing follows an explicit learning sequence across the school. 

We follow the CUSP writing curriculum, which is an evidence-informed, carefully sequenced English curriculum. This maps core content in reading and writing across the primary journey, ensuring that learning is taught and revisited over time so that pupils commit their understanding to the long-term memory.

By the end of Key Stage 2, we aim for a child to be able to:

• Write with confidence, fluency and understanding, orchestrating a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct

• Have an interest in words and their meanings, developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms

• Understand a range of text types and genres and to be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the situation

• Develop the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness

To find out more about our teaching of writing at Holywell, have a look at our writing process and progression document below:

Kinetic Letters is a unique handwriting programme that believes good, fast and fluent handwriting underpins success in every curriculum area. It is based on a physical programme where children learn handwriting and letter formation through movement and multisensory experiences, developing core body strength. We are phasing Kinetic Letters into our school, so currently all children up to Year 3 are taught Kinetic Letters. Children in Year 4 upwards have been taught using cursive formation and they continue to practise their handwriting daily.

Learning letters by movement helps writing and concentration and also makes handwriting automatic, freeing up space in the working memory for other learning.

The Kinetic Letters programme uses four main threads: 

• Making bodies stronger

• Learning the letters

• Holding the pencil

• Flow and fluency

It enables children to develop legible handwriting that is produced quickly and automatically. With the development of automaticity, handwriting becomes a valuable tool and not a hindrance to learning.

All children up to Year 3 takes part in a Kinetic Letters lesson everyday which focuses on letter formation and then body strength and pencil grip are continuously reinforced throughout the school day in every lesson.

Each letter family is introduced to the children through a story about two monkeys called Bounce and Skip. Bounce is a brave monkey and helps write the tall letters whilst Skip is a scared monkey and helps write the other letters. Children are taught all of the Kinetic Letter families, upper case letter formation and number formation: