Research School Network: Teaching Primary Writing: an Inclusive Approach By David Windle, Director, London South Research School

Universal, whole-class teaching strategies are the bedrock of inclusive teaching. Fortunately, in a primary writing lesson, universal, whole-class teaching strategies are the most effective tools for supporting every child. They are also the only way to catch a glimpse of an Arctic Fox.

What do I mean by this?

Over the years, I have taught and watched many primary school writing lessons, and I have long wrestled with what best supports children to enact the writing process. Enacting the writing process is difficult and full of potential pitfalls and distractions. Children so easily lose the thread of it or, as if following a track of pawprints in the snow, suddenly find the path has vanished.

The writing process, as described in the EEF’s Improving Literacy at Key Stage 2 Guidance, is familiar to many of us. It is a useful depiction of the phases most writers of any age and level of expertise go through when writing. The question is, how do we support children through every part of this process, so that they successfully produce a piece of writing at the end of it?

The answer is that every single element in every single lesson of every single writing unit must support the children to enact part of the writing process, on their way to producing a clearly defined outcome. This is no easy feat and requires constant vigilance to keep things from gently drifting off track. Keeping a clear written outcome in mind is key, as it shapes how the writing process unfolds and is enacted. If, after completing a writing unit, the children aren’t producing a clear written outcome, the path has been lost somewhere along the way.

Paw Prints in the Snow

Every moment in every lesson is a paw print in the snow; if those paw prints remain intact, they might lead you to glimpse something magical, be it an Arctic Fox or a non-chronological report about windmills. Each paw print follows the last and leads to the next, a chain of connected moments that culminates in the desired goal.

For children who find writing most challenging, a clear pathway to the written outcome is vital. Without it, they can find themselves wandering in a blizzard.

A blizzard of what? The blizzard can be made of all the best things: talk, vocabulary, drama, grammar, spelling, sentences, paragraphs, texts, partner work, new ideas, shared writing…the list goes on. Any and all the components of writing lessons can become the blizzard unless they are laser-focussed on arriving at a predetermined written outcome. This idea is backed by an Evidence Review of Writing Approaches Ages 3 ‑13 which states that

​‘structured approaches that give students step-by-step guides to writing in various genres, focused squarely on writing outcomes’ is a core component of successful writing teaching.

To return to my original point, how, then, is inclusive teaching one of the most effective tools for teaching writing?

Universal Strategies

Two universal strategies hold and guide all writers while harnessing the combined power of everyone in the classroom, children and teacher, thinking about the same thing at the same moment.

The first is the structure of a writing unit. The unit structure scaffolds everyone in the classroom, including adults. It holds everyone in the same process at the same time and helps children to think like writers. An Explore – Practise – Compose structure underpins all of our writing units. We used this under various names until I read Mike Cain’s book. For us, the key to making this structure successful is using it as a pathway to a single, clear writing outcome. It is the snow in which the paw prints can be placed. It may take a few weeks to get there, but it’s worth it for that Arctic Fox.

The second inclusive strategy is what we call ​‘supported sentences’ (within the overall system we call supported writing), which is perhaps best described as a pumped-up and compressed ​‘I do-we do-you do, inter-think aloud, independent/​shared write’.

Maybe it’s not best described as that. It’s hard to describe, but it makes sense when you see it. It amounts to everyone thinking and writing together at the same time, led by the teacher who is also thinking and writing a fraction of a moment ahead of the children. The scaffold that supports all learners is everyone thinking and writing together, as if the class is a single writing mind, the process guided and articulated by the teacher, who captures ideas in the room and models turning them into sentences, while the children do the same alongside. It uses live modelling and repeated handover to galvanise and support all writers on their path to producing a unique written outcome. Through this, the teacher places the paw prints in the snow for the children to follow. These lessons often produce a number of Arctic Foxes.


I’ll keep wrestling with this and return to it in future blogs. I don’t feel that this is an Arctic Fox. Yet.