Year 3 Writing Curriculum at West Wycombe School

Our Year 3 writing curriculum is designed to equip students with the skills they need to become proficient and confident writers. By focusing on key skills, we ensure that our students meet the expectations of the national curriculum and develop into the type of writers who can effectively communicate their ideas and engage their readers.

Key Skills covered:

Composition

When planning a text: 

• Discuss a piece of writing similar to that they are going to write and learn from its layout and from the word choices made. 

• Discuss and record ideas when they plan. 

When drafting and writing a text: 

• Compose sentences and dialogue in speech before writing them on paper, using these opportunities to try out new, rich and varied vocabulary and to experiment with different types of sentences. 

• Make some attempt to use paragraphs by organising similar ideas next to each other. This may include one sentence paragraphs. 

• Create settings, characters and plot in story writing by, for example, using adjectives to elaborate on basic information. 

• Use headings, sub-headings and other organisational devices when writing non-fiction. 

When evaluating and editing a text: 

• Assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggest improvements. 

• Suggest changes that improve consistency in writing by, for example, suggesting a change in word choice or replacing a noun with a pronoun to avoid repetition. 

• Proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors. 

• Read their own writing aloud to a group or to the whole class, using appropriate  

expression, control and volume to make their meaning clear. 

Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation

• Build nouns by adding prefixes like super–, anti– and auto– e.g. super-strength, automatic.   

• Remember to use 'a' before a consonant and 'an' before a vowel e.g. a rock, an octopus.   

• Identify words which have similar spellings because they have similar meanings e.g. solve, solution, solver, dissolve, insoluble. 

• Use conjunctions like when, before, after, while, so, because to express time, place and cause. 

• Use adverbs like then, next, soon, therefore to express time, place and cause. 

• Use prepositions like before, after, during, in and because of to express time, place and cause. 

• Start to use paragraphs by organising writing ideas next to each other. 

• Start to layout their writing using headings and sub-headings. 

• Use ‘have’ or ‘has’ to make some use of the present perfect tense e.g. 'He has gone out to play' rather than 'He went out to play'. 

• Begin to use inverted commas " " to punctuate direct speech.

Spelling

• Use further prefixes and suffixes and understand how to add them. 

• Spell further homophones. 

• Identify commonly misspelt words and attempt to correct them. 

• Understand how to place the apostrophe within regular plurals. For example, 'The girls’ and boys’ teacher. 

• Use the first two or three letters of a word to check spelling in a dictionary. 

Handwriting

• Use diagonal and horizontal joins and understand which letters are best left un-joined. 

• Write with increasing legibility, consistency and quality in their handwriting. For example, making sure their down strokes are parallel and the same size. 

•Write with increasing legibility, consistency and quality in their handwriting. For example, making sure the lines of writing are spaced so that the letters on different lines do not overlap.