At Botwell House Catholic Primary School, we are committed to ensure all of our children develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well-equipped with the acquired skills and knowledge that can be used throughout each phase of their education, enabling them to become life-long learners.

We aim to ensure all of our children develop a genuine love of language and the written word, through a high quality text approach, which links closely to the way we teach reading.

We believe that developing children as writers is so much more than asking them to remember grammatical constructions of tricky spellings. By enabling a child to become a writer, they are given a voice, supported to communicate and provided with a skill that is vital for all of their schooling and beyond.

We intend:

• To create confident writers who develop stamina for writing throughout school and are able to write at length.
• For all of our children to be independent writers, building on a range of skills as they work through each journey of writing.
• That all of our children are exposed to high quality texts that model excellent writing practises across a broad range of genres.
• For our children to have a secure understanding of the purpose of a text type, the purpose and intended impact of writing skills/tools and the ability to carefully select vocabulary with focus on the desired effect on the readers’ thoughts and feelings so that the impact of their writing is positive.
• Ensure that all pupils know how to plan, practise, evaluate their work as well as carry out an effective edit and improvement process using feedback from the teacher.
• That our children are challenged and encouraged to take risks and view mistakes as a positive part of the learning process.
• To celebrate writing at each stage through the learning process to encourage children to take pride in their work.
• To provide a balanced and broad curriculum, which encompasses writing practice and equips children with the skills and knowledge of writing processes including handwriting, spelling, grammar, widening vocabulary and writing for different styles.
•  To be inclusive of all children, including SEND by providing the appropriate scaffolding, support and writing tools those children need in their writing process to experience success.
• That our children have high expectations of themselves where they take pride in all aspects of learning and in everything they produce.
• We want them to write clearly, accurately, coherently, and creatively, adapting their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences.
• Through our ‘Botwell Handwriting Policy’, we encourage the children to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part of developing a joined, consistent style. We believe that all good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process.
• Oracy is prioritised in our writing curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum. Our high quality texts enable discussion and questioning which prepares our children the tools they need in order to be successful in their writing.

Please see below for more information about how this is being implemented within our school....