Writing Expectations

At Sacred Heart, we use The Oxford Reading and Writing Criterion to aid us in our assessment of reading and writing skills. 

These criteria describe the reading and writing journey that children make, from their first pre-writing behaviours through to a more complex and sophisticated understanding and mastery of writing skills. The reading and Writing Criterion Scales break down children’s  development into small steps so that it is easy to identify the point children have reached, and the steps they need to make next in order to progress.

Although the criteria are set out in a rough hierarchy, every child’s reading and writing journey is different, so the  Criterion Scales support a ‘best-fit’ teacher judgement against national expectations.

Essential Pre-writing skills

Before being assessed against the Reception standard, children must be beginning to draw identifiable letters and/or write his/her own name.

Reception– end of year expectation

By the end of the Reception Year, children should be able to:

 Write three or more simple statements on a given subject that can be read without the child’s help and that make sense, although letter shapes and spelling may not be fully accurate. There may be no full stops (or there may be one or more in the wrong places) and use of capitals and lower case letters may not be fully established.