Rationale

At the forefront of our English curriculum is nurturing children’s creativity and imagination through the use of a variety of high quality texts which are chosen to engage and inspire. These texts are selected to develop a rich and expansive vocabulary that children will then utilise in their own writing across the entire curriculum. Using well-chosen texts allows pupils to understand and identify key features of different genres that they will be writing, therefore ensuring they develop their ability to write independently for different purposes. Children are routinely developing their use of different writing skills and features, ensuring progression of these skills in their writing throughout school. Pupils are taught that successful writers evaluate and refine their work, and so are given regular opportunities to edit their work during and after the writing process becoming increasingly independent as the move through school.

Aims

The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

How is the subject taught:

Writing is taught daily within our English lessons, but is interwoven through all areas of our curriculum, ensuring that children transfer their writing skills to everything they write.

Westcliffe Primary School has developed our own handwriting scheme that ensures children leave our school with a clear, fluent and uniform handwriting style.

If you walk into a writing lesson you will see:

• the development and application of new and exciting vocabulary
• children working in collaboration with the adults and each other 
• children working through different stages of the writing process
• teachers explicitly modelling the writing of different genres as well as punctuation and grammar
• children investigating a range of text types
• children planning for their writing in a variety of ways 

If you have any further enquiries about Writing within our school, please contact Miss Megan Ross.