Year 6 Writing Curriculum at West Wycombe School

By fostering a supportive and stimulating learning environment, we ensure that our Year 6 students at West Wycombe School are well-prepared for the challenges of secondary education and beyond.

Key Skills covered:

Composition

When planning a text:  

• Say who they are writing for and what they hope to achieve, using similar writing to help them choose appropriate vocabulary, grammatical devices and layout. 

• Make notes and develop their ideas, using their reading and what they have researched to help them. 

• Use their reading and knowledge of what real authors do to develop characters and settings in narrative writing. 

When drafting and writing a text:  

• Select grammatical devices to enhance the meaning of their writing.  

• Select ambitious vocabulary, often accurately, to create a particular atmosphere or effect.   

• Use imaginative description of settings, convincing characterisation and a range of stylistic devices to develop atmosphere in narrative writing.   

• Integrate dialogue into narrative writing to convey character and move on the plot. 

• Reshape and precis longer passages to adapt writing into an appropriate form. For example, using information about the spread of illness to write a poster about the importance of hygiene.   

• Use a wide range of devices to make sure their writing flows within and across paragraphs. 

• Use devices that not only ensure their writing flows, but which add emphasis or effect. For example, I use the adverbial opener 'Hurriedly...' rather than 'Quickly...' to suggest a degree of disorder. 

• Use headings, sub-headings and bullet points to lay their writing out and guide the reader. 

When evaluating and editing a text:  

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

• Suggest changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation that enhance the effect or clarify the meaning of their writing. 

• Check for consistent and correct use of tense throughout a piece of writing. 

• Check that the subject and verb agree when using singular and plural nouns; for example, 'The dog barks at the postman' vs 'The dogs bark at the postman'.  

• Distinguish between the language of speech and writing, and can choose the appropriate register. 

• Proof-read for errors in spelling and punctuation. 

Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation

• Use different vocabulary for formal and informal speech and writing. 

• Understand how the meanings of words relate, including being able to use the term synonym and antonym. 

• Use the passive voice to create an effect. For example, 'The window in the greenhouse had been broken' instead of 'I had broken the window in the greenhouse'.  

• Recognise and can use different sentence structures in their writing depending on the level of formality. For example, use question tags for informal speech: He's your friend, isn't he?  

• Use the subjunctive for very formal writing: 'If I were...' or 'Were one to...' 

• Link ideas across paragraphs using a wider range of devices such as repetition, ellipsis and adverbial phrases ('On the other hand', 'in contrast', or 'As a consequence'). 

• Lay their writing out in different ways to make it clear and more appealing to the reader.  

• Use headings, sub-headings, columns, bullets and tables. 

• Use a semi-colon, colon and dash to mark the boundary between independent clauses. For example, It’s raining; I’m fed up. 

• Use a colon to introduce a list and use semi-colons to separate larger items within a list. 

• Punctuate bullet points when listing information. 

•Use hyphens to avoid unclear meaning. For example, 'the man eating shark' rather than the 'man-eating shark'. 

Spelling

• Use further prefixes and suffixes and understand the guidelines for adding them. 

• Spell some words with silent letters like knight, psalm, solemn. 

• Distinguish between homophones and other words which are often confused. 

• Use their knowledge of word meanings and the origins of words to help with spelling and understand that the spellings of some words just need to be learnt. 

• Use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words. 

• Use the first three or four letters of a word to check spelling, meaning or both of these in a dictionary. 

• Use a thesaurus.  

Handwriting

• Write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed by choosing which shape of a letter to use when given choices. 

• Decide whether or not to join specific letters as they develop their personal style. 

• Understand that they might use different handwriting when writing a quick note and writing up in best. 

• Choose the writing implement that is best suited for a task.