English - Writing, Grammar and Spelling

Intent

At Farncombe Infant School we strive to enrich and develop children’s vocabulary and stretch their imagination in and writing through our English teaching. We want all children to become confident writers who are able to write effectively across a range of genres with good understanding of purpose and audience.

The National Curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language

  • Appreciate our rich and varied literacy heritage

  • Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

  • Use discussion in order to learn

  • Are competent in the arts of speaking and listening

 

Implementation

At Farncombe, writing is based on the Talk for Writing principles. Children are hooked in with exciting experiences to draw the children in before fully immersing them in the vocabulary and grammar of the writing focus. The children are exposed to high quality model texts which children spend time unpicking to identify important key features before considering how they might adapt the model text to develop and invent their own writing. Shared writing with the teacher at the Innovation stage focuses on the skills and toolkit they must demonstrate before their own independent writing. The classroom environment is key to developing writing with key vocabulary, making learning visible as well as support the children to make decisions about their writing.

 

 

In Reception, children are taught how to form letters using the Little Wandle letter formation for print. They are taught how to use their phonic knowledge to write simple words. When ready, children are taught how to orally compose and write a simple sentence beginning to use capital letters, full stops and fingers spaces.

In Year 1, children build on the experiences of EYFS with an increased expectation for writing to finish the year being able to correctly use the everyday toolkit in most pieces of writing. Children are also taught how to use different genre toolkits through shared or guided writing as modelled by the teacher. This supports children to move from the imitation stage to the independent invention stage of the Talk for Writing sequence.

By Year 2, the children have a secure knowledge of writing for purpose, they are then able to use progressive toolkits to construct different types of sentences appropriate to the range of genres and use more advanced conjunctions and punctuation. By the end of year 2 we expect all children to see themselves as competent writers who are able to write for meaning and purpose.

If you were to walk into an English lesson at Farncombe, you would see:

  • High quality model text being used as a stimulus for writing

  • Purposeful writing opportunities which excite children and motivate them to write

  • Stimulating classroom environments that support learning in writing

  • First quality teaching from all adults with modelled shared/guided writing, with groups of children supported where necessary in lesson