At Bitterne CE Primary School, we believe the ability to use and understand language is a life skill that should be nurtured to ensure that all pupils become confident and enthusiastic writers. By exploring a range of texts that are inspiring and engaging, we aim to develop an enjoyment for writing which encourages our children to understand the relationship between the author and the reader. Our English learning journey, enables them to recognise how structure, vocabulary and composition of a piece of writing impacts on the audience.  

Handwriting
Handwriting requires practice to enable children to become fluent and coherent writers. Therefore, we teach it as a specific skill rather than an independent task. Each child, will be taught by their class teacher the correct letter formation or join for their specific year group three times a week. Additional, independent practice will be included within the timetable to help consolidate these skills. At the start of the year these lessons may need to be increased to daily, so that expectations are set early on. Sometimes it is appropriate for a whole class session to focus on a specific skill. At other times, to cater for the range of handwriting ability, differentiated group working is needed. The school uses the Nelson Handwriting Scheme to teach handwriting and a progression of skills has been created in line with this and the National Curriculum. The letter formations taught in EYFS and KS1 are the Read Write Inc Rhymes.