Our English curriculum is designed to enhance our children’s English skills for life and to inspire and excite children whilst ensuring that they develop the necessary physical and technical skills to write effectively for a range of audiences. We want children to see the power and purpose of the written word and to leave school as effective communicators.

By ensuring the centrality of quality texts in our English curriculum, we foster enthusiasm for writing in our children. We ensure that they understand the purpose of accurate and effective communication, and expose them to numerous real-life writing experiences.

We are passionate about creating interesting writing experiences and incorporate role-play and drama techniques across our creative curriculum, using Talk for Writing and oracy techniques from EYFS through to Y6. We link our English books and teaching objectives through the theme for each term, ensuring that there are meaningful links across the curriculum. Recently, we have participated in whole-school projects organised by Bigfoot Arts, a theatre and education company, engaging children in a range of exciting drama activities whilst developing their confidence as writers.

Our lessons are carefully designed, coherently planned, and sequenced using high-quality texts to build towards an extended piece of writing which demonstrates children’s mastery of language and individuality of creative expression. Appropriate scaffolds and support are used to ensure that all children can engage in a lesson whilst ensuring a high ceiling and expectations for all.

Our children are enthusiastic when engaging and communicating with the world around them and they use what they have been taught to develop interesting and engaging pieces of extended writing for a range of purposes. They understand that their writing might change depending on the target audience and, by upper KS2, they develop their own unique authorial voice.

We carefully monitor attainment and progress in writing through regular teacher assessment and termly pupil progress meetings. Targeted interventions are carefully planned and monitored to ensure that all children have the opportunity to succeed. We actively in engage in writing moderation with local schools and we are currently involved with an online moderation project using the Pobble platform.