As with the rest of the Kingsbury Way, play and active learning is key to writing development in our curriculum. Children in our school will develop writing skills through physical and sensory play, fine motor activities (such as threading and play dough) and more formal writing experiences. Writing at Kingsbury involves both fine and gross motor activities to develop the strength and muscles in our arms, shoulders and core. Children explore making marks in a variety of materials, such as shaving foam and sand. Using chalk on the playground is one of our favourites! Children are encouraged to bake and cook to help develop their strength and skills. Children are encouraged to write their names and that of their family. We use ICT to help develop our skills, this is especially important for internet safety. As with all of our curriculum, writing is often integral to some children’s communication, building sentences using PECs, a talker or colourful semantics is developing our writing and composition skills. At Kingsbury we follow a thematic approach so lots of our writing and sensory exploration is related to our topic.

Our aim is to develop the children’s confidence and independence but also have fun! Drawing, painting, colouring in, crafts and cooking also help to increase positive mental health and self-esteem. It allows children to have the opportunity to explore colour and shape and can help with coordination. It allows children to explore different ways to have fun and maybe find a new hobby!

In some classes our writing experience may be sharing stories with adults drawing attention to the shapes of words. It may be drawing attention to words and symbols in the environment or even pretending to write and make lists or copy the actions of an adult or peer. In other classes it may be passing objects from one hand to the other or putting an item in and out of a container. We also have more formal writers who will write about their weekend or draw pictures and describe what is in the picture. In our school every child is completely unique and our play based curriculum allows us to meet their individual needs. 

We have high expectations of the children in our school and believe there is no limit to the children’s potential. Fundamental skills such as writing and other fine and gross motor skills like being able to use a knife and fork, will allow children to be as independent as they could possibly be. At Kingsbury all physical activity contributes to writing both directly and indirectly. Being able to communicate with friends and family is also key, in today’s modern age being able to text and send emails is so important. In our more semi-formal and formal curriculums being able to write with electronic devices is also a main part of our curriculum.

We encourage our children to write and explore fine motor activities in different contexts but also repeating favourite tasks to over learn the skills. Our main focus for our children is to increase their engagement in activities which promote learning with adept modelling and mirroring from staff. Writing throughout the curriculum overall is fun, active and based on real life thematic situations.

Writing at Kingsbury...

Writing in Becky's Class 

Writing in Helen's Class 

Writing in Katie's Class 

Writing in Eddie's Class 

Writing in Jess' Class 

Writing in Emma's Class 

Writing in Mel’s Class