Intent

At Thirsk Community Primary School, we aim to foster a lifelong love of writing by creating an environment where every child can develop their fundamental skills with confidence, creativity, and purpose. Guided by our school values of ambition, compassion, and inclusion, we ensure that every pupil feels valued, supported, and challenged to reach their full potential.

We understand that writing is a complex process that draws upon multiple skills and cognitive demands. To support all learners effectively, our writing curriculum is carefully sequenced to build knowledge and fluency over time, ensuring pupils can apply key skills with increasing independence and sophistication. Writing is taught through two interrelated strands: transcription and composition. These strands develop both the technical and creative elements of writing, enabling pupils to produce work that is accurate, engaging, and purposeful.

We recognise the cognitive challenge of writing—combining the mechanics of transcription with the creativity of composition. Our curriculum is designed to manage this demand thoughtfully:

· Early stages focus on secure transcription, reducing working memory load so that pupils can concentrate on generating ideas.

· As fluency grows, greater emphasis is placed on compositional sophistication, enabling children to manipulate structure, language, and tone deliberately.

· Repetition, modelling, and scaffolding ensure that key skills are internalised and automatised, freeing pupils to write with creativity and independence.

Implementation

Transcription: the technical foundations of writing

Transcription encompasses handwriting, spelling, and the accurate use of grammar and punctuation. These elements form the building blocks of writing, ensuring that children can record their ideas clearly and effectively.

We teach transcription skills explicitly and systematically to ensure all pupils develop fluency and accuracy, and are ready to write:

· Handwriting: Pupils are taught correct letter formation, joining, and presentation through a carefully sequenced and targeted approach. Fluent, legible handwriting supports cognitive fluency, freeing up working memory so pupils can focus on composition rather than transcription. Across the school, our ready to write routines are clear and embedded, to promote the posture and grip needed for writing. This focus begins in the Early Years, where provision prioritises the development of fine and gross motor skills: fundamentals which are then built upon and reinforced as our pupils progress through the school.

· Spelling: We follow a structured, cumulative approach to spelling that builds pupils’ phonological awareness developed through Little Wandle and develops this through morphological understanding and knowledge of spelling patterns. Children learn strategies to spell independently, using knowledge of sounds, prefixes, suffixes, and root words. We utilise Spelling Shed to embed this across the school and at home.

· Sentence level approach: A strong grasp of sentence construction is fundamental to effective writing. Explicit sentence-level instruction is the foundation on which all successful composition is built. When pupils can confidently construct, expand, and manipulate sentences, they gain the control needed to express ideas clearly and purposefully.

By ensuring secure transcriptional skills, pupils gain the confidence and fluency to express their ideas clearly.

Composition: the art of creating meaning

Composition focuses on developing pupils’ ability to generate, structure, and refine ideas for different purposes and audiences. Our approach builds pupils’ creative and expressive abilities alongside their technical skills, ensuring they can write with both accuracy and flair. We want to promote a love of writing, and we aim to achieve this through our Thirsk Approach.

We promote composition through a structured yet inspiring writing process, where pupils learn to both ‘read as a reader’ and ‘read as a writer’. This process is rooted in purpose and audience, giving our pupils real, engaging contexts and people to write to and for.

· Immersion: Every writing unit begins with an immersion stage designed to engage and inspire. This is rooted in challenging, high-quality texts. Through drama, artwork discussion, and real-life experiences, pupils are immersed in context before writing.

· Grammar and Vocabulary work: By embedding grammar in purposeful contexts, pupils see the purpose and utility of different grammatical techniques, and therefore increasingly “write as a reader”. These are applied in sentence level approaches, but then built and developed through oracy.

· Planning: Planning for writing gives children the opportunities to structure their final ideas from the understanding they have gathered along their writing journey so far. Children will be exposed to differing planning formats throughout their time at school, which will be modelled to them initially

· Modelled and guided writing: Teachers explicitly demonstrate the writing process, thinking aloud and modelling how to plan, draft, and refine text. Guided writing sessions provide targeted support, helping pupils apply new skills with increasing independence.

· Independent writing: Pupils are given regular opportunities to write independently for a clear purpose and audience. Writing tasks are carefully sequenced to ensure cognitive demand increases appropriately, with scaffolding gradually removed to foster independence.

Editing and Feedback

We teach pupils that writing is a process of growth. Constructive feedback and editing are woven through all stages:

· Phase 1: Checking content, clarity, and whether the writing meets its purpose and audience.

· Phase 2: Enhancing vocabulary, sentence variety, and cohesion.

· Phase 3: Focusing on grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Teachers, peers, and self-assessment all play a role in feedback, helping pupils reflect on strengths and identify next steps. This process develops resilience, self-awareness, and ownership of writing.

Free Writing

Our curriculum also gives time and thought to the pure joy of writing. Pupils in KS2 have their own free write books, which are available to them across the school day. Half termly

free write sessions are also to utilised, to give pupils time to express and view themselves as writers that they choose.

Impact

The impact of our writing curriculum will be seen in pupils’ confidence, independence, and expressive capability. Through our structured approach to both transcription and composition, underpinned by the values of ambition, compassion, and inclusion, every pupil is empowered to find their voice as a writer.

Termly moderation occur within school to ensure consistency. External moderations for every year group are also undertaken, to promote reflection and continued refinement of practice.

By the end of their primary journey, pupils at Thirsk Community Primary School will:

· Demonstrate fluent, legible handwriting and accurate spelling.

· Apply grammar and punctuation effectively and purposefully.

· Write with a clear sense of purpose, audience, and format.

· Use oracy to explore, rehearse, and refine ideas.

· Approach writing with confidence, resilience, and creativity.

· Engage positively with feedback and editing, understanding writing as a process.

Ultimately, our pupils will leave Thirsk Community Primary School as capable, compassionate, and ambitious writers—able to communicate with clarity, creativity, and purpose, equipped with the skills and confidence to express themselves beyond the classroom and throughout their lives.