How we support our pupils to acquire this learning:

Our English curriculum has been carefully designed so that learning is progressive, has links to real life situations and consolidates previous learning. We provide children with a structured curriculum from EYFS to KS2 allow for a clear, developing pathway to support our children to become fluent writers who are able to apply their skills across all subject areas. 

To achieve our subject vision, we will implement the following key strategies whilst allowing staff the autonomy to personalise their teaching according to our pupils needs: 

• Use of the Power of Reading Scheme to support teaching and learning of Writing skills through drama, role play and meaningful writing opportunities;
• High- quality texts form the basis of our English curriculum, with one core text being selected per half term to allow students to really become immersed in the learning; 
• Children are encouraged to deconstruct texts and identify key features for specific genres of writing.
• Explicit teaching of the writing process through: scaffolding, teacher modeling and shared writing. We differentiate our strategies where necessary to meet the needs of all our students.
• A variety of genres are progressively taught, identifying the appropriate features but also revisiting grammar, punctuation and ambitious vocabulary from previous lessons
• A variety of strategically planned speaking and listening opportunities within the lessons to support our students, most of whom, if not all, speak English as a Second Language; 
• The explicit and discrete teaching of grammar through a plethora of standalone grammar lessons, as well as sequenced writing opportunities; 
• Formative Assessments occur termly through Extended Writing pieces which students complete independently, which are analysed by the Teachers to identify target areas. 
• All students are given prompt and purposeful feedback, both verbal and written so that they know what their next steps are for learning, enabling learners to take ownership of their progress.
• Students are encouraged to Self-Assess through Success Criteria which form every English lesson, Genre Checklist and Peer feedback to support independence. 
• Students are encouraged to become independent Writers through differentiated resources which can be self-selected e.g. Word Mats
• Cross -curricular writing opportunities so that students can draw upon their skills and embed them, allowing for deeper learning to take place. 
• Cursive Writing is taught from Reception to encourage high presentation standards and to support children to write legibly; with students being able to achieve Pen Licence (Year 4 onwards) when they achieve the correct standard. 
• Vocabulary development is supported through WOW (Words of the Week), word banks, high-quality texts and spelling homework. 
• Students who are identified as not achieving age-related outcomes will be provided with additional support through: interventions, adult support in lessons, modelling of key skills, scaffolding and appropriately differentiated resources and tasks

How we measure our achievements:

• Students are proficient in English and can communicate their needs verbally and in writing at home, school and in the Wider World. 
• Students enjoy their writing lessons and the opportunities that are made available to them; they are happy and confident to talk about their learning, and are proud of their achievements. 
• Children are able to write for different purposes and can use the features of different genres, applying the strategies taught to them and using the resources  to produce high-quality independent work. 
• Presentation is valued and is of a high standard; most children leave able to write in a neat, cursive style
• Our children enjoy experimenting with and using a wide range of vocabulary
• Assessment in writing is ongoing as teachers carry out in-depth assessment of children’s writing at the end of each unit, and highlight the age-related outcomes that have been achieved.
• Target Tracker is used to analyse gaps in children’s knowledge and gain an overview of specific groups of children across school.
• Progress across classes is closely monitored by the subject leader and senior leadership team. Monitoring will include: regular book looks, lesson observations, gathering evidence of good practice, pupil voice interviews, looking at data on Target Tracker and regular learning walks.
• The findings of this monitoring will be used to inform next steps for the children and the implementation of writing across the school as a whole.