Subject Leader: Miss Hutchinson

“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” Anais Nin

Our English curriculum is structured around four key areas of learning.

• Speaking and Listening (Oracy) – developing pupils’ ability to articulate ideas clearly, listen attentively, and engage confidently in discussion.

• Handwriting – teaching pupils to write with increasing fluency, accuracy, and legibility.

• Spelling – enabling pupils to apply spelling patterns and rules to write words correctly.

• Composition – supporting pupils to organise and communicate ideas effectively in written form, adapting language and structure for different purposes and audiences.

We aim to develop children who are confident users of language, willing to take risks in speaking and writing, and able to learn from mistakes as they develop their English skills. 

Our curriculum is carefully planned in line with national guidance, including the updated writing framework

Speaking and Listening

Speaking and Listening is seen as an integral part of the whole curriculum and is central to Literacy development especially at the early stages of writing. Pupils are encouraged to work collaboratively to generate ideas but also to develop the use of their own individual ‘writing voice’. Clear and correct speaking is modelled by all adults in the school to help pupils use the correct grammar in both their fluent oracy and in their writing. Speaking and Listening activities and the understanding of language is a huge focus in the EYFS and this focus provides a foundation on which future skills are developed moving through the school.

Spelling

We recognise that children who can spell feel confident and are able to write with enjoyment. We want our children to be equipped with a range of strategies for learning spelling and to be able to apply their strategies when spelling words in their independent writing.

Daily practice of spellings is necessary in EYFS and KS1, this will be part of the daily Twinkl Phonics sessions.

In KS2, children participate in three spellings sessions per week.  We have chosen to adopt the ‘Spelling Shed’ spelling programme which focuses on teaching the development of the connections between sound families and the spelling rules of the English language. As part of these lessons, the children are introduced and explore the phonological rules and patterns of vocabulary before consolidating these with blended learning technology which enables them to apply their knowledge across the curriculum.

Handwriting

Handwriting is a skill which, like reading and spelling, affects written communication across the curriculum. Children must be able to write with ease, speed and legibility. Cursive handwriting teaches pupils to join letters and words as a series of flowing movements and patterns. The development of this fluid style when mastered allows children to apply their energy into the content of their writing as opposed to the formation of the letters themselves. Handwriting skills are taught regularly and systematically throughout the school.

Writing and Composition

Written skills are developed weekly through our English lessons. Pupils also have explicit lesson focusing on grammar, punctuation and spelling which improve their basic literacy skills; these skills are taught in a purposeful manner and pupils are given opportunities to apply the skills directly. Vocabulary is a focus across all areas of our curriculum, particularly in English lessons, and new vocabulary linked to the learning is taught to pupils within English topics for writing.

In all aspects of pupils’ learning at Cheetwood our partnership with Parents/Carers reinforces that learning process. Writing workshops are held to support Parents/Carers in helping their child at home. Parents/Carers are given advice about how they can foster a love of reading and writing in their child, how to provide their child with meaningful opportunities to write in the home setting and how their child can improve their speaking and listening skills.

In our teaching of writing, we aim for all children to:

• Appreciate that writing is a universal method of communication;
• View writing as a process over which they have control;
• Enjoy playing with language and write for pleasure;
• Write appropriately for specific real or imaginary audiences;
• Write for a variety of purposes;
• Make judgements about the tone, style, format and vocabulary appropriate to the writing’s purpose, audience and genre;
• Write clearly, legibly and accurately with attention to punctuation, spelling and grammar;
• Recognise that drafting, incorporating significant revision into their writing and proof-reading are integral parts of the writing process;
• Achieve independent writing of a high quality

Early Years Foundation Stage

In the Early Years, children are encouraged to attempt their own emergent writing and their efforts are valued and praised. As their phonic knowledge increases, this will be reflected in their writing. At the same time, their knowledge of key words is supported through reading and writing activities, including shared reading and writing. A wide variety of opportunities are provided for children to engage in writing activities. Amongst these are:

• Shared writing
• Role-play (e.g. an office or restaurant)
• Labels
• Recipes
• Lists
• Making books
• Writing letters/cards
• Menus
• Instructions 

Through engaging in these activities, children become aware that writing is used for a range of purposes. They distinguish it from drawing, and learn the left to right convention of writing in English. A variety of resources are used to encourage the development of fine motor control which is essential for good handwriting. These include playdough, cutting, threading and tracing. Write Dance is a tool which is used promote these motor skills and the correct pencil grip and formation of letters.

Within the Foundation Stage, both the indoor and outdoor environment include resources to support the children’s mark making, drawing and writing. Staff involve themselves in the children’s mark making by modelling the process and by helping to order the children’s thoughts.

Writing can take place at any point in the day and in any area of the EYFS setting.

Writing in Y1-Y6

Planning Guidance

At Cheetwood Primary School, our writing curriculum follows a book-based approach that is tailor-made for our pupils. Teachers plan with a clear outcome in mind, taking our pupils on a writing journey for each intended piece of writing. All work pupils produce during that journey helps support them to achieve higher when crafting their final piece.

All planned pieces of writing produced by pupils are written for purpose and pupils are aware of the intended audience for their writing. Where possible, teachers plan for pupils to have the opportunities to ‘choose’ their topics for writing.

Pupils will produce writing across a range of fiction and non-fiction genres as well as writing and performing poetry.

Teachers planning cycles provide the following sequences of:

Cold Task – Teachers ask the pupils to complete a cold task piece of writing to assess pupils’ writing ability with chosen genres

• Stage 1 – Exploring a New Text

Creating Interest for pupils

• Stage 2 – Analyse and Discuss

Pupils read and respond to text ,delve deeper and gather content

• Stage 3 – Vocabulary, Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

Pupils learn basic writing skills and apply them

• Stage 4 – Planning

Pupils develop a RAFT for the writing outcome and planning using the RAFT

• Stage 5 – Drafting

Pupils construct their ideas into longer written pieces of writing

• Stage 6 – Editing

Pupils use ‘pink polishing’ pencils or pens to make edits and revisions to their original drafts

• Stage 7 – Publishing

Pupils re-draft their own writing and ‘publish’ a finished piece with an audience in mind

Hot Task – The final published piece from Stage 7 is used to assess progress of the pupil’s writing

*RAFT: Reason for writing, Audience, Features, Topic for writing

Short Writing – Stages 1 and 2

Writing skills need to be constantly practiced throughout the reading, responding and gathering content phases. Outcomes should be linked to a specific learning objective e.g. LO: To infer character thoughts and feelings Outcome: Diary

Examples of short writing opportunities include

• Diary entries
• Character descriptions
• Setting descriptions
• Dialogue exchange
• Fact file
• Letter to a problem page
• Book review

Publishing Writing – Stage 7

Children invariably write more effectively when they have a real audience and purpose for their writing. Thought should be given to this at the outset and shared with the children:

This might involve:

Writing stories to entertain Year 2, then arranging an opportunity for the children to share their stories; writing, then re-drafting non-chronological reports to make a class book which is put on display in the school library. Children reading, rehearsing and performing their own poetry to be recorded and shared on the school website.

Grammar and Punctuation – Stage 3

Age-appropriate grammar and/or punctuation objectives are selected for each unit, based on the genre or text type from the unit. However, it is important that the teachers consider the children’s current skills in relation to grammar and adjust this focus if necessary. For example, it is not appropriate to teach main and subordinate clauses to a Year 3 class who are not secure with simple sentence construction.

Teachers must first identify the grammar objectives from the unit. If there is a Treasure House activity that is linked to this objective, this should be taught first as a lesson/part lesson. Following this, grammar starters for subsequent lessons will reinforce the objective and the i-model must be used.

As well as the acquisition of grammar skills, knowledge and terminology, it is important that children are shown how to apply these appropriately in their own writing.

This process involves:

• The teacher modelling the appropriate application during the writing phase
• Establishing the expectation that the the children will apply the skills appropriately in their own writing
• The children having opportunity to self and peer assess
• Teacher feedback marking which reflects the grammar or punctuation on focus
• It is advisable to address one or two objectives for grammar and/or punctuation within a unit; this allows skills to be taught and secured through a ‘little and often’ approach.

How often should children write?

In Key Stage One and Key Stage Two, pupils should be given the opportunity to write in every English lesson. This does not have to be a sustained piece of writing but a short writing opportunity is acceptable e.g. a few sentences in response to a text; a short paragraph; or even a quality sentence.

Writing Across the Curriculum

In addition to writing within the English lesson, we provide opportunities for pupils to develop their writing across the curriculum and apply the skills learned in English lessons. There should be one planned ‘Writing Across the Curriculum’ opportunity per subject. These are completed in children’s subject specific book.

The Learning Environment

To ensure that the learning environment in all classes is consistent and supports the teaching and learning of writing, all classes contain the following:

• English display
• Genre, intended audience and purpose for current units
• Vocabulary from the current unit
• Model sentences highlighting grammatical uses/terminology
• Quality WAGOLL (What a Good One Looks Like)
• Features from the current genre pupils are learning to write within
• Writing mats must be accessible to pupils where appropriate

Impact

By the time pupils leave Cheetwood Community Primary School we hope for them to be confident and competent speakers, who can enjoy having lively discussions and debate with their peers on a wide variety of topical subjects. We hope that our pupils will develop a wide, varied and rich vocabulary that they are able to use with confidence. We want our pupils to see themselves as writers who are passionate and proud to write in their own unique and individual writer’s voice.

• By the end of the Foundation stage, we expect all pupils will have made progress towards achieving the expected standard of GLD on all areas of learning with the majority of children achieving the expected standard of GLD. We also expect that an increasing number of pupils will be achieving GLD
• By the end of KS1, we expect that all pupils will have made expected or accelerated progress towards achieving the expected standard in writing and more pupils will reach the expected standard, scaled score of 100 English. We also expect a higher percentage of children will be achieving greater depth than the previous cohort
• By the end of KS2, we expect that all pupils will have made expected or accelerated progress towards achieving the expected standard in writing and that more children will reach the expected standard scaled score of 100 in English with a larger proportion achieving a scaled score of 110+