National Curriculum Programmes of StudyCurriculum Progression

Early Years Overview Year 1 Overview Year 2 Overview Year 3 Overview Year 4 Overview Year 5 Overview Year 6 Overview

At Castleview Primary School, we believe that every child is a writer. We are passionate about developing every child’s knowledge, motivation and confidence in their writing. We have chosen HFL Education’s ESSENTIALWRITING as the basis of our writing curriculum for Reception – Year 6. This is an ambitious and progressive writing scheme which provides our children with opportunities and tools to write for a range of specific purposes and authentic audiences. As a result, our children feel inspired and ready to write high-quality outcomes within the classroom but also have the knowledge, strategies and confidence to choose to write in their own lives.

Each year group has 12-16 teaching units, all of which use diverse and high-quality literature as good examples of writing craft and to help to motivate or inspire children to write. ESSENTIALWRITING is fully aligned with the National Curriculum for English including writing composition, vocabulary, grammar & punctuation for each year group. Each writing unit is progressively structured and centred around the different writing purposes: to entertain; to inform; to persuade and to discuss. The writing purposes are also progressively sequenced across the school.

Children in Reception are not introduced to specific genres; instead, they take part in bookmaking projects to support their understanding that writing is a multi-sensory and joyous activity, that is purposeful. Within Year 1 – Year 6, genres linked to the writing purpose are studied across each year group as follows:

Alongside ESSENTIALWRITING, at Castleview Primary School, we have adopted Spelling Shed as the basis of our spelling curriculum. ESSENTIALWRITING supports our children to apply this learning in context and build their spelling confidence. Writing models reflect age-appropriate spelling objectives and children are taught how to monitor the accuracy of their writing. Handwriting is also taught.

Letter-Join: Our Handwriting Scheme

Letter-Join is a comprehensive, interactive handwriting programme designed to support pupils from Early Years through to Upper Key Stage 2. Letter-Join helps children develop confident, legible and fluent handwriting through a structured, engaging approach.

What Is Letter-Join?

Letter-Join is an online handwriting resource. It combines clear teaching methods with fun, interactive activities to help children form letters correctly and develop a joined handwriting style at their own pace. The programme follows the National Curriculum and provides consistent progression from mark-making in Early Years to fully joined cursive writing in Key Stage 2.

Key Features

Interactive letter formation demonstrations
Children can watch letters being formed with clear animations showing start points, direction and joins.
Fully cursive handwriting scheme
Letter-Join teaches a continuous cursive style that develops fluency and helps improve spelling through muscle memory.
Patterns and pre-writing activities
Early learners benefit from pattern tracing, fine-motor warm-ups, and pencil control exercises.
Tablet and touchscreen activities
Children can practise letter formation using a finger or stylus, supporting early mark-making and handwriting fluency.
Printable worksheets
A wide range of sheets are available for extra practice, homework and focused handwriting sessions.
Customisable word banks
Teachers can create personalised word lists to match class topics, tricky words or spelling patterns.
Handwriting policy support
Letter-Join provides schools with consistent scripts, fonts and guidance to ensure a unified approach across all year groups.

Why We Use Letter-Join

It provides a structured pathway from early mark-making to fluent joined handwriting.
The programme supports visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners with animations, spoken instructions and hands-on practice.
It encourages good posture, pencil grip and fine-motor control, ensuring children develop positive writing habits.
The engaging activities help build confidence, accuracy and enjoyment in handwriting.

Home Access for Pupils

All pupils can access Letter-Join from home via our school subscription. This enables them to revise handwriting techniques taught in class and practise at their own pace. Home access works on laptops, tablets and touchscreen devices.

Parents can support their child by:

Encouraging short, regular practice sessions
Using the animated demonstrations to reinforce correct letter formation
Printing additional worksheets if extra practice is needed
Exploring pattern, phonics and word-based exercises together

A Parent Guide is available to help you get started, including login instructions and suggestions for supporting handwriting at home.

Parent Guide

Spellings

At Castleview, we use Spelling Shed to support the teaching and learning of spelling (Years 2-6). Spelling Shed uses repeated practice, short-term retrieval and small-step goal achievement to support learning.

In Spelling lessons, students will continue to build on the firm foundations built whilst studying RWI in EYFS and KS1. They will continue to break down spellings into the smallest units of sound and cluster them into syllables in order to read and write words efficiently. Children will become more secure in their knowledge of English orthography based how patterns of letters are used to make certain spoken sounds and they will also learn about morphology which describes how words are structured into subcomponents to give meaning. This will include studying word parts, their meanings and how this affects spelling such as consolidating children’s knowledge of common morphemes such as root formations, prefixes and suffixes.

Most lessons in the scheme include an etymology element that allows teachers to teach the children about the origin of the words that they are learning about. Children will be able to see how the English language has, over time, borrowed and integrated words and spellings from a range of source languages.

Progression in Spelling