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Writing

Subject Intent

At Bywell Junior School we understand the importance of writing and giving each and every pupil the opportunity to thrive and progress as confident and capable writers. We are absolute in providing children with a rich writing diet, using high quality reading books and text extracts to inspire children to become established writers, which will enable them to gain an important lifelong skill. As a school, we adopt the Jane Considine ‘Write Stuff’ writing scheme of work, which has a large focus on using vocabulary and writing lenses as the key ingredients for becoming a confident and successful writer.

We encourage our pupils to be reflective writers, to write, edit and redraft not only their own writing, but also paired and grouped work. Children are encouraged to push their own boundaries with writing; we look to nurture them as individual writers and support all stages of the writing process. The aim is to develop children’s writing independence and endurance throughout the school. We believe that children of all writing abilities have the potential to become confident writers. Writing lessons give children the opportunity to work collaboratively together, through positive partner talk in a calm and peaceful writing environment. Children at Bywell have a compassionate approach to writing; they listen to each other and share ideas in pairs or in small groups, working collaboratively whilst understanding the need to engage in high-quality discussions allowing them to develop their own sense of compassion and understanding.

At Bywell, a large focus is put on understanding the importance of exposing the children to a rich diet of vocabulary, through the use of carefully selected texts and through quality first teaching in all lessons. With the Jane Considine ‘Write Stuff’ writing scheme which is used across school, these texts have been carefully selected with our children in mind, giving them a diverse experience to a range of different genres. A large focus on this writing scheme is the development of children’s vocabulary. This is at the heart of each daily writing lesson, where children will complete ‘chotting’ sheets which is where vocabulary shared by the teacher (and by the children) is recorded on a ‘chotting’ sheet in the children’s books. ‘Sentence Stacking’ and ‘Chotting’ displays are used throughout the school and can be seen in every classroom; these displays not only support, but encourage children’s use of vocabulary and grammar in all subject taught in the classroom.

At Bywell, we have high expectations of both grammar and spelling, not only in English, but throughout every subject that is taught. Children are given the opportunity to apply writing skills in a range of writing activities in these lessons; from sustained pieces to short and precise fact files. Grammar is deeply embedded in all lessons taught throughout the school and non-negotiable basic writing skills are a fundamental requirement in all pieces of writing across the school. Children who find writing more difficult are supported effectively by teaching assistants either 1-1 or in a small group, or with ‘Chotting’ sheets to support the use of vocabulary in their books. In English lessons, a major part of the writing scheme is the ’Grammartastics’ section of the writing rainbow. The writing lessons included in this section, focus on embedding key grammar elements on a daily basis in the children’s writing.

Subject Implementation

As a school we have now rolled out the Jane Considine approach to writing (The Write Stuff) across all 4 year groups ( Year 6 began in September 2023)
The Write Stuff, created by Jane Considine, is a system that will sharpen the teaching and learning of writing within the classroom. It is research informed and practically applies evidence for improving writing outcomes
The school will follow the rainbow streams for writing which include FANTASTICS, BOOMTASTICS and GRAMMARISTICS. These provide guidance for both teachers and pupils with a wealth of ways in which the children can showcase their flare and select a focus for deepen the moment
The school will follow the unit lesson plans and sequence of lessons from the Jane Considine Write Stuff
Writing units have been specifically chosen to ensure a broad writing coverage of the curriculum
Writing units will be slowed down giving children the opportunities to explore vocabulary and grammar elements in more depth during the teaching sequences
Children will be exposed to experience lessons, sentence stacking lessons and independent writing lessons which also include planning, writing, editing and redrafting
Children will record their work in books on a daily basis
Children will be encouraged to use CHOT (chat and jot) when orally discussing ideas within the classroom
Teaching sequences will be systematically built, with 3 learning chunks in each lesson. Each chunk will consist of an initiate, model and enable sequence
Writing will focus on plot points and positive and negative events
Children are encouraged to develop their own writing content and stamina through quality first teaching and the systematic approach of Jane Considine
Writing is now being assessed using the Jane Considine assessment which accompanies the ‘The Write Stuff’ writing scheme
Children will show endurance in their writing in all types of writing lessons including independent writing sessions
Children will have the opportunity to edit their work in a number of ways, including spelling and punctuation, rewriting and reimagining
There is also a focus on writing basics that are targeting across all year groups; basic punctuation needs to be accurate for children to work within specific year group expectations
We are following the Pen Pals handwriting scheme which is taught across all year groups; pen licenses are awarded by the head teacher for exemplar examples of children’s handwriting
The school feedback policy has been reviewed to make marking more precise and effective; daily work is marked using the agreed marking codes and margin marks are used for unaided pieces of writing
Writing prompts to be used to support children’s punctuation in English books. If children achieve 5 consecutive days, then the writing prompts are removed. If a child fails to use basic punctuation correctly after this, then the prompts are reintroduced
Year 6 teachers and writing lead attend moderation opportunities with peers
Inhouse moderation termly across all year groups

Subject Impact - Updated July 2025

Jane Considine Writing units to be continued to be used across school
Year 3 and Blossom to use writing units from the EYFS Jane Considine where appropriate and following discussion with the writing lead and SLT
Work books throughout the school show good progression of writing tasks
Pupil voice indicated that children enjoy writing in our school and that there is a wide variety of writing tasks in each year group
Pupil voice also showed that children view writing as a positive part of the school day
The 2025 SAT results:

School Kirklees National

EXS + 74.2% 70.9% 72%

GDS 7.2% 8.8% 12%

Next steps for 2025/2026

Review the writing curriculum after the release of the new writing framework which was released in July
Year groups are to review their current writing units and change any that have not been successful this academic year
Training and staff meeting time to be allocated to refresh the teaching sequence for the Jane Considine writing units
Continued book looks and moderation of writing to be undertaken by subject leader and by teachers within year groups
Year 6 to continue to take part in the writing moderation as part of the local school’s pyramid
Review the teaching of spelling throughout the school

Autumn Update

Major changes have been made to the way in which spellings have been delivered throughout the school:

Read Write Inc scheme for spelling is no longer being used for teaching spellings across the school.
I delivered a staff meeting training session for the teaching and implementation of the new approach to teaching spellings across school and the new scheme of work we will follow.
School is now following the Vocabulary Ninja whole school scheme: this scheme builds in opportunities to revisit past units including the statutory and non-statutory spelling words for previous years learning.
The teaching of spelling is now taught in a more practical and proactive way: lessons include a mixture of practical and written activities where children learn the spelling rules, the meaning of words in context and explore word families, rhymes and spelling patterns.
Spelling books are now being sent home for spellings to learn. Year 3 and Year 4 are learning 10 spellings a week, with Years 5 and 6 learning 18 spellings.
Weekly spelling tests are taking place once a week, with the new spellings for the following week being sent home after the spelling test.
Spelling has been placed on the SDP of the current academic year.
Feedback from the most recent rounds of lesson observations showed that teachers have taken a hands-on approach to the delivery of spellings and the engagement by children in lessons has seen a dramatic improvement since the introduction of the new scheme. Excellent practice has been observed and this practice has been observed by other members of the teaching staff.
New spelling display has been put up in the staffroom to support staff with the whole school overview of spelling and supporting resources that can be used in the classroom during spelling lessons.

Writing

School is continuing to use the Jane Considine Writing scheme which we have adapted to fit and work in Bywell.
Some writing units have changed after reflection of the teaching and outcomes of units taught in the previous school year.
Writing lead has supported ECT teachers through modelling good practice (being observed) and teaching in other classes to model expectations for writing.
‘Deepen the moment’ challenges will continue to be introduced and used to develop children’s writing in further detail.
Writing lead has completed ‘drop ins’ to teacher’s lessons to informally observe the teaching of writing
Outcomes from the ‘drop in’ sessions:

Basic sheets presented in children’s books in all year groups
Chotting sheets present to support LA children in all year groups
Evidence of precise and effective modelling by class teachers
LA children mostly support effectively by class ETAs in small, focused group setting
DM challenges evident and being attempted in most classes.
Weekly spellings on display in some classes to support with the integration to writing

May 2026 Update

Teachers across all year groups have continued with the new delivery of spelling, continuing with a practical approach to teaching
Lesson observations were conducted by SLT across all year groups, where a wide range of activities and teaching delivery was observed.
Teachers had adapted the activities that were given and amended them to have a stronger impact on their own individual classes.
It was observed that children were more engaged in the spelling sessions and that the learning of spellings had become and enjoyable activity
The whole school are continuing to use the Vocabulary Ninja spelling scheme
Spellings are sent out consistently (weekly) with a spelling test at the end of each school week
Teachers has shared that they like that the scheme revisits common exception words and spelling rules that have been taught previously in other years as well as the current school year.