At Cherry Burton Primary School, we believe that fluent, legible and automatic handwriting is an essential foundation for successful writing. Our intent is to ensure that every child develops the transcriptional skills needed to become confident, independent writers, allowing them to focus their cognitive energy on composition, vocabulary and communicating their ideas effectively.

Our handwriting curriculum is based on the Morrells Handwriting approach and is fully aligned with the Department for Education's Writing Framework. We recognise that handwriting is not a stand-alone subject but an integral part of learning to write. Throughout our curriculum, we explicitly teach and continually embed the key transcriptional skills of letter formation, joins, spacing, sizing, posture, pencil grip and presentation alongside spelling and composition.

We recognise that strong handwriting begins long before a child picks up a pencil. From the Early Years onwards, we place a strong emphasis on developing the gross and fine motor skills that underpin successful handwriting. Through carefully planned activities, children build core strength, shoulder stability, hand strength, finger dexterity, bilateral coordination and pencil control, ensuring they have the physical foundations needed to write with confidence, accuracy and fluency.

We teach handwriting using a stage not age approach. This means children are taught according to their current stage of development rather than solely by their year group. By identifying individual starting points and providing targeted teaching, practice and intervention where needed, we ensure every child is supported to make strong progress towards fluent, automatic handwriting.

Through high expectations, consistent modelling and regular opportunities to apply handwriting across the curriculum, we aim for all pupils to:

• develop the physical skills that underpin effective handwriting through gross and fine motor development;

• develop correct letter formation from the earliest stages;

• achieve fluent, joined handwriting when developmentally ready;

• take pride in the presentation of their work;

• build stamina and automaticity so that handwriting no longer limits the quality of their written composition; and

• leave Cherry Burton as confident, capable writers who can communicate their ideas clearly and effectively.

We believe that every child can become a successful writer, and fluent handwriting plays a vital role in making this possible.