Writing

English: Intent, Implementation and Impact 

English is at the heart of our curriculum at Cledford Primary School. Our curriculum is designed with the intent that all children will become fluent readers who have a love of reading and an appreciation of the value of books, and creative writers with a sound understanding of grammar and technical features. Our personalised, culturally rich, spiral curriculum that we have developed will instil in all children a love of reading and writing that will hopefully last them a lifetime. Through our use of high quality, cross curricular texts and vocabulary rich environments, our children are exposed to a language heavy, creative English curriculum. The National Curriculum forms the foundation of our curriculum here at Cledford but we ensure that our children gain additional skills, knowledge and understanding by enhancing our curriculum, when necessary, to ensure that they know more, remember more and understand more. We encourage all children, through the curriculum we have developed, to be motivated, reflective and resilient learners. 

Writing Intent 

Writing is an integral part of our curriculum at Cledford School. We want every child to leave our school with the skills of a competent writer who: 

• can write creatively, fluently and accurately regardless of genre or topic 

• has acquired an understanding of the mechanics of spoken and written English through their knowledge of grammar and punctuation 
• can spell words accurately that comply with the spelling rules that they’ve been taught or that are contained in the statutory word lists 
• can write in a clear, consistent and legible style, taking a pride in the presentation of their handwriting 
• has a rich and varied vocabulary to allow them to comprehend others and to express themselves clearly both in spoken and written form 
• applies the skills of editing to improve their writing 

The wider curriculum at Cledford is designed so that our pupils have regular and frequent opportunities to use and apply the writing and spoken language skills that they have acquired during English lessons in a range of different contexts. 

Writing Implementation 

High quality texts are at the heart of our curriculum and a text based approach to writing is used to ensure our carefully planned and sequenced writing opportunities offer pupils the chance to write in a range of styles and for different purposes across the curriculum. Each text is carefully selected in order to promote a love of reading, engagement and quality writing from each child. We teach pupils to structure and organise their writing to suit the genre in which they are writing, thinking about possible reader impact and how this can be best achieved. 

Writing skills are not just taught discretely in English lessons but throughout the day via cross curricular writing opportunities. We promote the learning of new vocabulary through discussions around the literature studied and develop confidence in the use of new vocabulary through regular opportunities for using it.  

The teaching of spelling at Cledford is sequentially planned to buid upon prior knowledge. There are regular timetabled spelling sessions across KS2 and phonics sessions in KS1 and EYFS. Pupils learn spelling rules, common exceptions words and irregular spellings. 

Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons as much as possible. Teachers will sometimes focus on particular grammar and punctuation skills as separate stand-alone lessons, if they feel that the children need additional time to embed and further develop their understanding or to consolidate skills. 

Writing Impact 

Our writing curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. Children leave Cledford as confident writers. They are able to write creative and engaging pieces, in a well-structured, technically accurate way. Our children are able to express their views clearly and articulately both verbally and in written form. 

We aim for the percentage of pupils working at ARE at the end of each key stage to be at least in line with national averages and for there to be no significant gaps in the progress or attainment of different groups of pupils.