Writing and Spelling

Easingwold Primary School -  Writing and Spelling Curriculum Statement

'Excellence for All'

Outcomes for Pupils:

An unwavering ambition to ensure all children are equipped with the academic and social skills needed to be ready for the next stage in their education.

Fostering a thirst for the acquisition of knowledge and recognising that learning is a life-long skill.

Embracing a culture of self-awareness and respect to allow us to grow as citizens. 

Teaching and Learning:

Empowered creative and inspirational staff who inspire children to achieve highly.

Enabling our children to widen their horizons and aspire to personal excellence through the development of a broad and exciting curriculum which places experiences as a high priority. 

Permitting the taking of risks by means of exploring new and innovative approaches to teaching and learning. 

Intent: What do we want to achieve?

The primary aim of our whole school curriculum is to provide 'Excellence for All.' To achieve this we want to develop children as curious, independent and resilient learners who have a secure understanding of themselves, their community and the wider world in which they live in. We want them to have high aspirations and make positive contributions to their community and society. It is of the utmost importance to us that we provide pupils with indelible experiences from which they can learn and develop a range of transferable, lifelong skills. 

At Easingwold Community Primary School, we deliver our Writing and Spelling curriculum to ensure it follows the key aims of the National Curriculum. English is the fundamental skill that all children need to access life. It is the foundation to our curriculum. Our main aim at Easingwold is to ensure that every single child becomes primary literate and progresses across all areas of English (phonics and reading, writing and spelling, speaking and listening.) The areas are intertwined within our curriculum and are specifically taught so that the skills can be embedded and transferred across subjects, as we strive for 'Excellence for All.' At Easingwold we want all of our children to be confident authors. We recognise that all children are individual and that they have their own starting point. Our staff work to individual needs to ensure every child celebrates success each year as an individual author. 

At Easingwold we want our children to have develop a love of writing and to be able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through written language. We also intend to create authors who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing, and enable pupils to be able to confidently use the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling. At Easingwold, we set high expectations for all our children to take pride in their work and have developed a handwriting policy which allows them to perfect their handwriting as they progress through school.

Implementation: How will we achieve this?

English at Easingwold Primary is taught on a daily basis, so that the children can develop their writing techniques. Teachers follow our school's purpose progression for writing units and, with spelling, punctuation and grammar skills, these are developed through the year groups. Existing knowledge is visited at the start of each genre and retrieval opportunities are built into the start of lessons to support the children in recall what they have previously learnt. This ensures that teaching is informed by the children's starting points. Lessons are designed to provide appropriate support and challenge all learners, in line with the school's commitment to inclusion for all. 

In order to help us to develop confident, enthusiastic writers who can express themselves in a variety of different styles across a variety of contexts, our teaching of writing is delivered through a wide range of hooks and stimulus. This provides the children with regular opportunities to write for a range of purposes, with real life audiences. 

Through the use of high-quality texts, we immerse our children in a vocabulary rich learning environment. This helps us to ensure the curriculum expectations and the progression of skills are met. The children at Easingwold are exposed to a language rich, creative and continuous curriculum which will not only enable them to become primary literate, but will also support a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening. 

As we believe consistency and well-taught English is the grounding of a valuable education, we ensure that the teaching of writing is purposeful, robust and shows clear progression for all children. In line with the National Curriculum, we ensure that each year group is taught the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives. Our writing journey is consistent for each unit. The children experience immersion in texts, opportunities to plan and orally rehearse their writing before drafting and redrafting as authors, applying the SPaG skills that have been woven in. 

Impact: How do we know we have been successful?

The impact on our children is clear: they are proficient and confident writers. They demonstrate progress, sustained learning and transferable skills relevant to their starting points. By the end of their primary school journey, the purposes of writing are known to them and they are confident to choose a style of writing which will satisfy the intended purpose. Our pupils will acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of written language. Most importantly, they will develop a love of writing and be well equipped for the remainder of their educational journey.  

As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards have also improved as the skills taught during English lessons are transferable to all subjects. The ability to transfer these skills displays the consolidation and understanding of how and when to use spelling, grammar and punctuation. The children identify and make these links with increased independence. We hope that as the children move on from their primary educational journey, their creativity, passion for English and high aspirations travel with them and continue to grow and develop as the individual authors we have created. 

Outcomes

At the end of each year, we expect children at ECPS to have reached Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group and /or show good or accelerated process from Autumn to Summer term. Children who are working outside their programme of study will show good progress in their individual writing and spelling ability. All children will secure the fundamental principles of writing and spelling which they can apply to varying contexts on their life journey. 

Writing

Handwriting

Punctuation and Grammar

At ECPS, our curriculum follows the statutory requirements, as set out in appendix 2 of the National Curriculum, for punctuation, grammar and associated terminology.

Spelling

At ECPS, we deliver our spelling curriculum using the No Nonsense programme for children in year 2 to year 6. Spelling in EYFS and year 1 is supported via our Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme.

Common Exception Words

Common exception words are words that appear commonly in text and the spoken language, but which cannot be decoded using normal phonics rules. This could be because they do not follow normal spelling rules or contain unusual letter combinations. These lists are statutory spellings, which must be explicitly taught and learnt.

National Curriculum