English

I am a communicator, author and performer. I play with words and experiment with new vocabulary. I know that my words give me a voice, they help me present and persuade, inspire and instruct, rhyme and rap, empathise and explain. 

Writing at St Petroc's School

INTENT

At St Petroc’s C of E Primary School, we aim to deliver an exciting, innovative English curriculum which enables and empowers children's written and oral communication and creativity.  We want our children to develop a love of English and the opportunities that our language provides.  Children will be immersed in text and language rich environments and develop a love of story, poetry and information.  The children at St Petroc’s will see themselves as writers and experiment with, and explore language within their own work whilst developing a secure understanding of the technical components of spelling, handwriting, punctuation and grammar.

IMPLEMENTATION

In the early stages of writing, children learn to use their core muscle strength to achieve a good posture for writing, and to hold a pencil effectively with good control.  We work with children on their fine motor skills, ensuring that appropriate hand exercises and targeted activities are a key component of the day.  

Children use pens, pencils, paints and chalk throughout the day to mark-make, and bring meaning to those marks through the creation of lists, invitations, cards and stories. Children’s imagination and vocabulary is developed in an enjoyable and purposeful way through play, talk and stories. 

Children are supported to transfer their phonic knowledge from RWI sessions to writing for a purpose.  Adults model the use of sound mats to support the formation of letters to represent sounds. This enables children to begin to form letters, words and sentences, focusing on the use of finger spaces and simple punctuation to allow the sentence to make sense.  Children are encouraged to read what they have written to check for understanding. 

Writing follows the objectives of the National Curriculum. From September, children in Reception, Y1 and Y2, engage in Drawing Club sessions, entering into a world of adventure, developing confidence and joy in writing through immersion in picture books, tales and animations. They are exposed to a treasure trove of vocabulary, opening up a playground of language, developing their creativity and imagination to show them that they are extraordinary. Drawing Club involves a short period of time together as a whole class followed by time with children exploring their ideas and creativity.  After listening to a traditional tale, a well-known story or an animation from the past, the children are taken on an adventure with words, actions and descriptive drawings.  The children use their imagination to create a theme, object or character from the story and they use their stories as a conversation starter to talk about what their picture means to them.  They then choose a ‘code’ of numbers, letters or even words to bring magic into the drawing with the creative ideas. 

In Year 3 to Year 6, we use the 'Talk for Writing' approach. Children learn to tell stories to build a bank of; phrases, characters, settings and plots to use in their own writing.  They develop their vocabulary and confidence playing word and sentence games.  Teachers model the writing process through shared and short burst writing.  They demonstrate the conventions of grammar and punctuation for children to apply to their own writing.  This is evident through fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts.

Talk for Writing: The Imitation Phase

During the initial 'imitation' stage of Talk4Writing, children learn to tell a story off by heart. They retell a text with expression and actions and make use of a story map to support their retelling; ​this enables children to gain a deep understanding of the text and embed language features and writing styles.  The children use different methods to understand and analyse the different parts of the story and to explore the story type.  A variety of activities are used in the imitation phase and include the following: * Reading comprehension activities * Oracy activities * Role play and storytelling * Vocabulary games * Understanding key vocabulary * Story and text mapping * Features of the genre.

Oracy is a key curriculum driver and the imitation phase provides opportunities for children to rehearse key language and sentence structure.  A high level of emphasis is placed upon children developing oracy to verbalise ideas and speak in whole sentences. Continuous opportunities are provided for children to develop their speaking and listening skills, especially through the innovation phase of writing. High-quality texts are carefully selected as a basis for writing. 

Talk for Writing: Innovation and independent application

Once the story is learnt, children are encouraged to adapt it.  At the 'innovation' stage, children make the story their own, for example, by changing the character or setting.  

Now that the children have developed these writing skills, they are equipped to be able to transfer them into an independent piece of writing which will demonstrate their knowledge of the language features, grammar skills and style of writing they have been working on. This gives the children the chance to learn stories, become storytellers themselves and grow into inspired story writers.

Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation 

Punctuation and grammar is incorporated within English lessons across a range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Spelling and handwriting is taught separately with opportunities to apply this knowledge across the curriculum.

Handwriting

In EYFS, children develop their letter formation through the Read Write Inc scheme as they learn their sounds. They learn to join letters and form a fluent, consistently formed handwriting style as they progress throughout the school.

IMPACT

The impact on our children is that they have the knowledge and skills to be able to write successfully for a purpose and audience.  With the implementation of the writing sequence being established and taught in both key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and have the ability to plan, draft and edit their own work.  By the end of key stage 2 children have developed a writer’s craft, they enjoy sustained writing and can manipulate language, grammar and punctuation to create effect.