Writing Curriculum

Intent

Writing: ‘The Write Stuff’

At Benhurst we intend for writing to be centred on a high-quality text that captures the children’s interest from the outset. The structure that we used to teach writing is a personalised approach based around best practice taken from ‘The Write Stuff’.

Our main focus is placed on a love of story, enrichment and language in order to create ‘impact writers’.  To engage our children in writing, we provide purposeful reasons to write where pupils learn to enjoy writing expressively, imaginatively and informatively for purpose. We make writing part of daily life, linked to play, fictional and real experiences. We encourage the children to develop personal voice, style, stamina and range as a writer.

Teachers are ambitious for our pupil outcomes, providing an approach to writing across both key stages that focuses on: correct letter formation, spelling age-appropriate words, understanding when to use a range of punctuation and to use creativity in their vocabulary and sentence structures. Children approach writing with courageous optimism and boundless creativity having had a clear, modelled process before tackling the genre independently. Our children have a deep knowledge of the purpose of writing and how expressing our creativity and imaginations in various way can benefit the wider world.

“Why write? Writing crystallises your ideas. It preserves them for others. It reveals the facets of your thinking. Good writing is creating a gem for others to discover.” – Jane Considine, The Write Stuff

Implementation

Writing in KS1 and KS2

The children follow a method called ‘sentence stacking’ which refers to the fact that sentences are grouped together chronologically or organisationally. This approach encourages the children to engage with short, intensive moments of learning that they can apply immediately to their writing.

The children learn to sentence stack, focusing on the style of the author and impact of words and sentences. The planning of these is based on the teacher’s assessment of the children’s learning needs. An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken into three separate chunks:

To be great writers, our children need to know about The Three Zones of Writing. These three essential components consist of: the FANTASTICs (Ideas); the GRAMMARISTICs (Tools); the BOOMTASTICs (Techniques).

These areas are vital to assisting the children through the writing process. Through the three zones of writing, we begin to take a systematic approach to helping the children very explicitly at every stage of their writing journey.

• The FANTASTICs help children to sharpen their understanding of their own and others’ writing by encouraging them to be observant and
• The 9 GRAMMARISTICs cover national curriculum requirements, capturing the broad spectrum of key grammar knowledge.
• The BOOMTASTICs capture the ten powerful ways to add drama and poetic devices to writing. They help children structure their work, teaching them to showcase their writing voice, demonstrate originality and to take risks in a bid to capture the truth of a situation

E1 Edit:

The Revise Edit Type 1: These are often “little” adjustments or changes and tend to fall into one of these categories.

Spelling                             Missed or additional words                               Punctuation

E2 Edit:

The Rewrite Edit Type 2: This is crucial and particularly for primary age pupils’ thinking needs to be attached to sentence rewrites. A rewrite would be appropriate if a sentence doesn’t make sense, could be restructured or generally improved.

E3 Edit:

The Reimagine Edit Type 3: This is when a writer wants to add more sentences to develop an idea further. Pupils are often resistant about adding more as it presents the problem of where to fit additional sentences. This is an ideal opportunity to train pupils to use ‘editing flaps’.

Editing flaps are extra pieces of paper that stick onto their writing and show the additional sentences added into their work.

Impact

At Benhurst, the Write Stuff Approach by Jane Considine has had a transformative impact on our pupils’ writing skills. Through this structured, engaging approach, children develop greater confidence in their writing, learning to craft well-organized and creative pieces with clarity and flair. By breaking writing down into manageable chunks, the approach fosters courage, encouraging pupils to take risks and experiment with language. Pupils learn to embrace their creativity, producing vibrant, imaginative work that reflects their unique voices. The consistent use of this approach across the school ensures that pupils build on prior knowledge, leading to noticeable progression in both technical skills and expression. Our ambitious ethos drives pupils to strive for excellence in their writing, while the collaborative nature of lessons promotes compassion, as children support and inspire one another in their writing journeys. As a result, pupils at Benhurst leave with not only the technical mastery needed for future academic success but also a genuine love for writing and storytelling.

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