English Writing Intent, Implementation, and Impact Statement
Intent
The National Curriculum for English (writing) aims to ensure that all pupils:
- 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.
At Longney Church of England Primary Academy, we believe that all children should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas, and emotions through their writing. We want our children to acquire a wide vocabulary, a good understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. We want our children to write clearly, accurately, and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes, and audiences. We believe that all our children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a good, joined, handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school. We believe that all good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas of improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. We do not put ceilings on what children can achieve in writing and we do not hold pre-conceptions about any children’s ability to make progress. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both grammar, spelling and composition skills, and so we want to encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school. We believe that speaking and listening skills underpin the writing process and children need to be actively developing these skills through all subjects; in order to write coherently, children need to speak in complete sentences.
Implementation
Whole School Approach:
We teach English as whole class lessons, so that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Within lessons, teachers and teaching assistants target support for all the children who need it, enabling them to achieve at an age-related level wherever possible. This may involve a greater level of scaffolding and access to additional support materials. Similarly, children are given opportunities to extend their writing in a variety of ways, through development of plot points within teaching sequences and in their independent writing with expectations of the children using higher level of vocabulary and grammatical features. Every adult in our school encourages every child to speak in complete sentences.
Spellings:
Spellings are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. Teachers use the Jane Considine spelling approach from Year 2 to Year 6, through which spellings and the spelling rules are investigated and taught. Reception to Year 2 are taught phonics using the Little Wandle scheme. Years 3 to 6 use the Little Wandle catch-up intervention for phonics, which also enables children to improve their spellings.
Grammar and Punctuation:
Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons as much as possible. Teachers plan to teach the required skills through the genres of writing that they are teaching, linking it to the genre so as to connect it with the intended writing outcome. Teachers sometimes focus on particular grammar and punctuation skills as stand-alone lessons, if they feel the class need additional lessons to embed and develop their understanding or to consolidate skills.
English Lesson Sequence:
Each class has a two-year overview of the writing genres they will teach, including narrative, non-fiction and poetry. These have been planned to ensure correct coverage of the key genres as well as build on skills from year to year. Each class uses primarily the ‘The Write Stuff’ (Jane Considine) units of work which follow a teaching sequence of scaffolded lessons, experience days and independent writing. Each half term begins with a poetry week, analysing, writing and performing poetry. For the rest of the term, the writing is usually based on one of ‘The Write Stuff’ units. Teachers intersperse the units with short independent writes related to the unit and the outcome of each unit will be a longer independent write which is used to assess the child’s skills against the agreed success criteria. Every unit is linked to a carefully chosen text which acts as a stimulus for teaching the identified skills. These skills are chosen from the Writing Rainbow - three zones of writing: ideas, tools and techniques which children will be expected to include in their independent write. In order to provide interest and variety, teachers sometimes follow a unit which isn’t from ‘The Write Stuff.’
Marking and Feedback:
Feedback and marking is completed, where possible, within the lesson. All marking and feedback is given in line with our marking and feedback policy. For the longer independent write, teachers edit a plot point with children, then mark the following plot point according to their editing skills.
Summative Assessment:
Summative assessments will be entered into Target Tracker during and at the end of each teaching sequence. The teachers will base their judgements on the quality of the independent writing the children complete and extended writing produced across the curriculum, and determine to what extent the children have met the agreed success criteria for that genre of writing.
Impact
Pupils will:
- speak in complete sentences;
- enjoy writing across a range of genres;
- be able to succeed in all English lessons because work will be appropriately scaffolded;
- have a wide vocabulary that they use within their writing;
- have a good knowledge of how to adapt their writing based on the context and audience;
- leave primary school being able to effectively apply spelling rules and patterns they have been taught;
- parents and carers will have a good understanding of how they can support spelling, grammar, and composition at home, and contribute regularly to homework;
- the percentage of pupils working at ARE within each year group will be at least in line with national averages;
- the percentage of pupils working at Greater Depth within each year group will be at least in line with national averages;
- there will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils.
