English and the Arts
Also see Reading and Phonics
We know that supporting children in making automatic choices about the way words are spelled is key to developing automaticity in writing. Spelling is taught discretely and regularly throughout the school.
The phonics lessons that the children have in their early years at school feed into more focused spelling lessons, beginning in Year 2. The children learn to break words down into their constituent sounds and syllables and are able to write these down. To develop their orthography skills, the children use an approach called Word Study, learning to recognise patterns in spellings and to identify what makes a word unique. This also involves understanding the meanings behind parts of words: knowing how a word has evolved in our language is an important step towards understanding how it is spelled as well as how it can be used. Investigating and sorting words also supports children in their vocabulary development.
Sometimes the children are given some words to rehearse at home using Word Study techniques. A few regularly occurring but unusually spelled words need learning out of context but, for the most part, we aim to support the children in being aware of the choices they have about ways of spelling different sounds and in feeling confident about how to apply them correctly most of the time.
Writing gives children a voice, an ability to share their thoughts and ideas. Children use their writing skills in almost all areas of the curriculum and we want our children to be able to communicate with others confidently and creatively through their writing. Therefore, we place importance on making writing meaningful and emphasising its purpose – to entertain, to persuade, to inform or to discuss. Children write every day across the curriculum.
Underpinning our writing curriculum is our reading curriculum: we know children’s reading experiences are closely linked to the progress they make in writing. Carefully chosen, high-quality and challenging texts support the development of the children’s vocabulary and writing techniques. They expose children to a breadth of literature and allow them to engage with authors and the way they write.
Learning to write is complex. Central to our children’s learning is achieving increasing fluency in the skills of handwriting, grammar and punctuation. Each year group has a specific set of skills to learn in order to ensure a steady progression through school. Grammar and punctuation are taught in context and linked to the texts children are reading in class.
Children also explore writing through drama and the spoken word. They are encouraged to articulate their thoughts and experiment with ideas and techniques. Clear teacher modelling of writing ensures that children are well supported in creating their own compositions before being able to work independently.