English
Intent
At Green Street Green, we strive to ensure that every child, by the time they finish primary school, can write in a manner which is clear, grammatically correct and engaging. As writing is a key life skill, we promote daily writing opportunities so that children can successfully write for a range of audiences and purposes. The children’s enjoyment of writing will shine in their bold vocabulary choices, careful presentation and clear understanding of what they are writing about. These skills, knowledge and passion for writing will lead to success in further education, employment and personal life endeavours.
Writing
Using the Literacy Tree as a basis for our lessons, the aims of the curriculum have been embedded into learning sequences. There is a clear progression for learning, providing structure to allow children to develop secure knowledge and understanding of the writing process. Rigorous assessments and reviews are regularly carried out to ensure that ambitious targets and additional support can be provided in order to ensure that all children can succeed and reach their potential. We believe that success in Literacy and the confidence in reading and writing ability is the foundation of a high-quality education, supporting children to be lifelong learners and providing them with the essential tools to participate effectively in society.
Reading
Inspirational texts, including novels, non-fiction texts, plays and poetry allow children to develop a love of reading, and provide the opportunity to engage in critical discussions of characters, ideas and themes. Our school library has been designed to foster a love of reading, with carefully selected texts that have been organised by theme, author and ability, allowing children to explore a range of texts at their leisure. Children are encouraged to take books home to share with their families, and our school librarian is pivotal in supporting this by recommending texts. Within the classroom, libraries and book corners have been designed to showcase key texts, including firm favourites and new releases, ensuring children are exposed to a wide range of texts. Children also have access to collections of books, based around an author or theme, meaning they have exposure to a plethora of high quality texts. Beyond the classroom, children in EYFS and KS1 are provided with a book that matches their reading ability to read to an adult at home. In school they will develop their decoding, prosody and comprehension skills, before showcasing their learning at home to their families. Children also take home a book to continue practising decoding at home, as well as a book to share. Once children are confident at decoding and word reading, and no longer require a book that matches their stage in their phonics learning, they have access to a wider range of challenging and exciting texts to read alone or share with their families. All children are provided with journals to record when they have read, as well as share their personal responses to what they have read.
Implementation
Inspirational whole texts provided the starting point for our curriculum design at Green Street Green. The writing curriculum explores and presents opportunities for creating links across the wider curriculum, enabling children to apply their skills and knowledge within a range of contexts. In order to excite and engage children, as well as develop a passion for writing, ambitious and well written texts have been selected. Modelling and shared writing within the classroom provide children with the foundations to begin the writing process, as well as the teaching of grammar, punctuation and spelling that has been embedded within the context of the writing unit. Lesson sequences build progressively towards extended pieces of writing, based around units focussed on fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Assessment for learning is central to ensuring rapid and sustained progress within the lesson and across the year. Children at Green Street Green take ownership of their progress through an active approach to their own learning. Children review their success as writers and, through collaboration and reflection, edit and improve their work. The active model for learning provides independent learners who feel equipped to achieve ambitious targets while developing lifelong skills for writing and scholarship.
Impact
The English writing curriculum has been organised to create a community of enthusiastic and skilled readers and writers. Children are increasingly confident to share their knowledge and showcase their learning with a flair for language and effective communication across a range of contexts and purposes. Writing outcomes for all children evidence the impact of the writing curriculum which exhibit a progressive range of skills and pride in their written work.
English as Another Language (EAL)
Children with EAL are taught within the classroom and receive support from a trained teaching assistant who works in conjunction with the SENCo. Opportunities to celebrate the increasing diversity of native languages within our school are taken whenever possible.