Hertford Junior School

We teach the children to become enthusiastic, lifelong writers, which is why it features in all subjects. We intend our children to have developed a love of writing and to be able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through the written word now, and for their future success, both within and beyond education.  

The Hertford Child is taught to develop their communication skills and take ownership and see themselves as real writers and authors with real audiences.  

We want to show children that writing for a range of purposes can be informative and wildly imaginative enough to take them beyond their own lives and experiences and travel the world to enjoy its diversity. We do this by providing a variety of language-rich high-quality hooks that prepare ALL learners, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to achieve their full potential in writing. 

We are teaching our writing through the Power of Reading at Hertford Schools. This is a book- based approach devised by the CLPE and rooted in evidence. Each year group studies a high quality text which is the hook that inspires the children to write for different purposes as they read the book together. 

Children who are not making expected progress are rapidly identified. We have a variety of ways to support these children. We believe that equality isn’t treating everyone the same, it is ensuring all of our children have what they need to succeed. We use bespoke interventions and in class support tailored to children’s needs that are designed to improve a range of skills. 

All children must have the opportunity and the encouragement to reach their full potential.  

Children will be supported in a range of ways appropriate to their bespoke needs:  

• Pre teaching 

• Catch up support 

• Bespoke interventions 

• The use of Communicate in Print as a scaffold to writing with visual stimuli 

• Overlays where needed and appropriate  

• Talking tins for verbal rehearsal and memory support 

• Visual stimuli 

• Aspirational learning partners  

• The use of technology such as Clicker, Nessy and word processing (In KS2) 

Diversity and inclusive texts used to facilitate writing can be an invaluable aid in helping children learn about different cultures and experiences. Children need to learn about all aspects of diversity and feel empowered to discuss what makes us all unique, valued and respected. More so than ever it is crucial to share with children books and texts which represent diverse and varied experiences and cultures. We are currently working on ensuring that writing stimuli is drawn from books that help to build understanding, empathy and tolerance of our different backgrounds. We want to share texts and writing stimuli with our children within which they can all see themselves, and which reflect our world community in all of its diversity. We deliberately select our Power of Reading texts to provide a mirror and window on the world.  

We carefully ensure there is progression of knowledge and skills when teaching writing. See our progression documents below.