Writing

WRITING AT ST PAUL’S

Pathways to Write underpins our writing curriculum, closely aligned with Pathways to Read. Using high-quality texts, direct teacher instruction, guided writing, and structured practice, children develop the skills to become independent, confident writers. By linking texts across Literacy, and other areas of the curriculum, our approach ensures writing is meaningful, purposeful, and connected to children’s wider learning.

At St Paul’s, we believe that by combining strong reading and writing programmes with a rich, knowledge-led curriculum, every child can become a confident communicator, a passionate reader, and an imaginative writer, prepared for the next stage of their learning journey.

OUR HIGH QUALITY TEXTS

SPELLING AT ST PAUL’S

At St Paul’s, we want every child to become a confident and efficient speller, as this is key to developing strong, fluent writing. We recognise that becoming an accurate speller does not happen by chance—it requires direct, structured teaching of spelling rules, patterns, and exception words.

To achieve this, we follow the Pathways to Spell programme, a structured and research-informed approach that ensures children learn spelling systematically and progressively. Children are taught spelling three times a week, with each week following a 5 - stage learning approach. First, children review previously taught spelling objectives. Then new spellings and words are explored and investigated through the explain section of the sequence. Children then practise the application of new rules through a variety of multi – sensory activities before applying the rules with greater independence within sentences. Finally, children reflect on the new learning and use personalised strategies to help each rule stick.

The aim of Pathways to Spell is to help children internalise spelling rules so that correct spelling becomes automatic, reducing cognitive load and allowing them to focus on improving the quality of their writing. Rather than traditional weekly tests, the impact of spelling teaching is seen directly in children’s writing and is formally assessed at the end of each term through a targeted spelling assessment.

Each week, spelling rules and patterns are carefully selected and taught with opportunities for consolidation and revisiting, based on ongoing assessment and tracking. This ensures that children secure their learning, gradually mastering both common and challenging words, and can apply them confidently in their writing across the curriculum.

Pathways to Spell helps children develop the skills and confidence to spell accurately and independently, supporting them to become creative, expressive, and capable writers.

Below are the overviews for each year group of our spelling curriculum:

HANDWRITING AT ST PAUL’S

We follow the Read, Write Inc programme for Handwriting. The children across the whole school experience a handwriting lesson each morning, with additional practice in the afternoons.

Each lesson consists of a 10 minute video, including a demonstration of the letter/join, a rap and self/peer feedback. We teach handwriting in a progressive, four-stage model:

Stage 1: Letter formation in Reception

Stage 2: Letter Village lessons, teaching individual letters in a mature handwriting style.

Stage 3: Letter Village lessons focussing on joins

Stage 4: Stamina for writing