Writing

 The Writing Curriculum

Writing at Park Junior School

We aim to develop children’s ability to produce well-structured, detailed writing in which the meaning is made clear and which engages the interest of the audience / reader. Particular attention is paid throughout the school to the formal structures of English: grammatical detail, punctuation and spelling. Our approach at Park Junior School, when teaching writing, covers the transcription and composition requirements of the National Curriculum.

Throughout the school, our writing follows the Book-Led curriculum. Writing opportunities are sourced and developed based on the class text within each year group. Our curriculum allows children to have the opportunity to explore high-quality texts in depth, enhancing reading comprehension and providing meaningful contexts and purposes for writing. The teaching of this programme is flexible and class teachers are then, in turn, able to apply their own creativity to cover the objectives across the school.

Teachers clearly model writing skills and document the learning journey through consistent working walls; guided writing sessions are used to target specific needs of both groups and individuals. Children have opportunities to write at length, in extended, independent writing sessions at the end of a unit of work – applying their taught skills to an unsupported piece of writing.

Grammar at Park Junior School 

As stipulated in the National Curriculum, the grammar of our first language is learnt naturally and implicitly through interactions with other speakers and from reading. Explicit knowledge of grammar is, however, very important, as it gives us more conscious control and choice in our language.

Grammar lessons are taught as part of our book-led curriculum and sequence of lessons. P Opportunities are provided for our pupils to apply their grammar understanding across a wide range of writing tasks. It is class teachers' expectations that, following the sequence of lessons to form building blocks to a piece of writing, pupils will begin to independently apply the grammar skills and content taught and embed these within their writing.

Spelling at Park Junior

At Park Junior School, spelling is taught regularly in focused sessions within each class. Class teachers use a range of resources to support with the teaching for spelling and this can then often be used as homework for children when applicable. Spellings can be sent home in each year group as part of the children’s homework. We ensure that all spelling rules and conventions are taught and revisited regularly throughout the year. Year 3 and 4 build on the firm basis provided by RWI and use Oxford Owl to continue their skills and understanding. Year 5 and 6 move this knowledge further and practice the skills. 

English and inclusion

At our school, we teach English to all children, whatever their ability and individual needs. English forms part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Through our English teaching, we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make good progress. We strive hard to meet the needs of those pupils with special educational needs, those with disabilities, those with special gifts and talents, and those learning English as an additional language, and we take all reasonable steps to achieve this.

When progress falls significantly outside the expected range, the child may have special educational needs. Our assessment process looks at a range of factors – classroom organisation, teaching materials, teaching style and differentiation – so that we can take some additional or different action to enable the child to learn more effectively. Assessment against the National Curriculum allows us to consider each child’s attainment and progress against expected levels. This ensures that our teaching is matched to the child’s needs.

Resources

There are a range of resources to support the teaching of English across the school. All classrooms have dictionaries and thesauruses for each child to access. Each classroom has a book area, with a range of books available to share. The books will be a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts. We have class sets of texts which the children are able to use for the lessons. We also have a range of poetry books to share and enjoy. 

British Values in English

 At Park Junior School, our values are at the heart of all we do: within our English teaching in the school, we strive to provide opportunities for pupils to develop their own core values whilst instilling the Fundamental British Values in many opportunities within units of work. Here are some examples of how we consolidate our pupils' understanding of British Values hand in hand with our own English curriculum:

• Democracy: 
  Pupils will learn about democracy through discussion and debate in many curriculum areas including English lessons.
• Individual Liberty:
  Pupils will develop their individual liberty through freedom and choice of the content, audience and purpose of their writing (including developing and justifying own opinions). 
• Tolerance and Mutual Respect:
  Pupils will learn about mutual respect through exploring character's relationships, friendships and behaviours. Children will be provided with the opportunity to discuss, debate and justify their own views and opinions, which in turn will develop empathy for others. Children will read and write about others' personal experiences through autobiography work, non-fiction texts and narrative work.
• Rule of Law
  Texts are chosen to provide our pupils with a chance to explore the rule of the law in an age-appropriate manner.