intent

At Senacre Wood Primary School it is our intention for all pupils to be confident and competent writers. We aim to provide them with a high-quality education in English that will teach them to become enthusiastic writers who can write fluently and communicate their ideas effectively. We aim to do this by equipping them with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature as well as their understanding of our literary heritage.

Within English lessons, based on the National Curriculum for English, we aim to ensure that we:

Provide opportunities for pupils to plan, revise and evaluate their writing.
Develop children’s awareness of different audiences and purposes for speaking and writing.
Use speaking and listening to support learning and influence writing.
Enable children to use a wide range of high quality English language and make connections across all areas of the curriculum so that they are competent, confident and independent in their use of language.
Provide pupils with a secure understanding of grammar so that they are able to apply this to written work.
Provide opportunities for pupils to develop writing stamina so that they are able to write at length.

For details of how we implement this within our school and how we measure the impact, please read our English Policy.

Important Information and Documents

English Policy

Handwriting Policy

GPS Progression

Creating Authors

Embedding a Love of Writing

We think that writing is a brilliant way to communicate our ideas! We write for a purpose, across different genres and to respond to what we have learned. Pupils here at Senacre Wood work exceptionally hard on the transcription and composition of their writing, illustrating some of our school values: resilience, innovation and reflection.

Each term children will take on different roles in their writing and therefore notation in books will be heavier towards the beginning of the year as teachers scaffold learning and address misconceptions.

Staff Will-

Children Will-

Autumn Term

We are Authors

-Complete in depth annotated marking of written work as per the policy.

-Heavy use of ‘mistakes’ modelling of correction of grammatical errors through cloze exercises and in games in discrete GPS lessons.

-Allow children time to take care over their work.

-Child proof reads their own and others work for errors with a big expectation by ability.

–Read and respond to in depth annotated marking by teacher. They will focus on self-esteem and other’s feelings when correcting.

-Not rely on an adult to be the first person to check their work.

Spring Term

We are editors

- Attend editing training for staff in December.

-Ensure that editing lessons form the first 3 or so lessons in Term 3 with an editing lesson becoming part of the planning overseen by MC.

-Incorporate a heavy use of visualiser, modelling, choice based changes for KS1 pupils.

-Continue to look carefully for errors in their own work

-Consider work to be unfinished, always.

-Change their learning behaviour to address their new role as editors.

-Independently move onto editing their own written work in other subjects as well as English, where appropriate.

Summer Term

We are publishers

- Make sure that editing is now part of the process and children who review work as they write or add things in later are praised and work is modelled, proof reading is natural

-editing is integrated into every lesson and is not just used a stand-alone direction to HA children who have finished.

- [KS2 children] be good models for revision of paragraphs.

-Use the drop every line technique in extending writing to leave space for additions.

-Publish paragraphs of work where a real difference in revisions can be seen.

Spelling

After the National Phonics Screening at the end of Year 1, teachers will begin to look at how to move their children on from words that can be sounded out phonetically. The move from phonics to spelling can be from as early as part way through Year 1 for higher ability children. We have chosen a programme that leads on from our RWInc phonics programme to bridge the gap between phonetic knowledge and common spelling rules in the English language, which begins for most children in Year 2.

There are various barriers to learning that need to be considered at all times, from confidence and self-esteem to dyslexic tendencies and poor phonic knowledge. We use the RWInc Spelling Zone, alongside games, songs and discrete teaching to enforce and retain new spelling expertise. Our staff work hard to ensure that key vocabulary is woven through the curriculum, and discussions take place about how words can be categorised according to word class, subject specific and cross subject specific language, as well as how to spell them. In Years' 5 and 6, the etymology of words (the origin of a word and the historical development of its meaning) is also used as a teaching point.