English – Writing
Intent
At Harpole Primary School, we offer a structured sequence of quality lessons, helping children to fully cover the skills required to meet the aims of the National Curriculum and to encourage excellence. Our aim at Harpole Primary School is to encourage children to be independent writers for a range of audiences and purposes across different text types, many of which link to the Reading Curriculum. Pupils will be taught to apply their writing skills across all curriculum subjects, which have been carefully developed around quality, challenging texts. Through weaving in prior learning, the Writing curriculum offers a range of opportunities for consolidation, challenge, variety, awe and wonder. Writing is an integral part of our curriculum. Teachers use the progression map to inform medium term plans in the subject. Careful consideration is given to the sequence of the curriculum and the way in which the lessons build towards a piece of writing which showcases pupils’ acquired knowledge, skills and understanding. Teachers and the writing lead pay careful attention to the cohorts in school and tailor our curriculum to meet the needs and interests of our pupils, choosing texts that inspire and motivate pupils to learn. In turn, this establishes pupil enjoyment and engagement in the subject.
We intend that pupils learn how to understand the relationships between words, word meaning, implied meaning and figurative language, as appropriate, within writing lessons, whilst ensuring that children are supported in their spelling strategies. We teach grammar as an integral part of each lesson, allowing children the opportunity to apply their new grammatical knowledge contextually. Medium term planning allows class teachers to effectively link grammar and punctuation with genres across the academic year. We intend that pupils will be taught to control their speaking and writing consciously and to use correct Standard English, knowing when and how to experiment with tone and structure. Through providing children with a meaningful purpose for their writing, we aim to ensure the best outcomes for each child.
Implementation
Our English curriculum is planned around a sequence of high-quality age-appropriate texts, visual and film-based stimuli and real-life scenarios, which challenge children as readers and provide excellent models for them as writers. We use each book to create opportunities to develop not only reading fluency and comprehension skills but also as a way to develop spelling, grammar and punctuation knowledge and understanding, which is then used and applied across the wider curriculum. Children explore the writing structure and features of different genres whilst identifying the purpose and audience. This allows them to plan and write an initial piece of work with a clear context and purpose before evaluating the effectiveness of writing and editing and redrafting. Spelling is an important skill both in and out of school. Spelling rules are explicitly taught in the classrooms as part of dictated sentences, short activities and through modelled and shared writing. There is an expectation that children will spend time at home learning their spellings. Writing is evident in every aspect of our curriculum and varying text types are taught throughout the school. The objectives of the National Curriculum are closely followed to ensure that the skills learnt in spelling, punctuation and grammar are embedded and transferred into writing. Lessons are carefully planned so that skills are taught, embedded, revisited and then developed in a sequential way which promotes learning and retention of knowledge and skills. Pupils are given a language rich curriculum and are encouraged and shown how to effectively use interesting and adventurous language in their writing. We expect and encourage children to present their work neatly, so handwriting and fine motor skills are taught throughout the school. Pupils are expected to start using a joined script later in Year 2 and continue to develop this throughout KS2.
Impact
By the time the children reach the end of our writing curriculum, they will have experienced a rich variety of the finest literature, they will have written in a range of text types and for a variety of different audiences and purposes. The impact of the curriculum will be that they become an effective communicator through the medium of writing, have developed authorial agency and are able to engage in meaningful discussions about their own work and the work of others.