At Tower Hill Primary School our core vision is that ALL children will be equipped with the skills, knowledge, understanding and empathy that will lead to them being able to make their own choices in life, successfully. At Tower Hill Primary School, we believe that communication, language and literacy is fundamental to the overall development of the child and their access to the whole curriculum.  A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils, therefore, who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively alienated.  We aim to deliver high quality teaching of writing and speaking and listening in order to develop confident and successful life-long learners.

Implementation:

At Tower Hill Primary School, English is taught everyday to all children from Year R to Year 6. The teaching and learning of English takes place within whole class and group settings which will be planned and led by the class teacher. During these lessons, children will be explicitly taught a range of skills that they will then practise in other Literacy contexts. All lessons will have clear learning objectives and ‘no ceiling’ success criteria in order to engender aspiration in all levels of learner and therefore shared with all children. 

Through the implementation of our English Curriculum, learning should be consolidated and built upon each year, ensuring that the children leave each phase of their learning with the relevant skills and knowledge.

We believe that all children, by the end of Year 6, should be able to write independently in a range of genres, for a range of real life purposes. Children should leave primary school as confident, successful writers. At Tower Hill, we have structured our English Curriculum as a text based curriculum. The reason behind this is that having a different text-driver each half term means that children produce rich written outcomes whilst also allowing the teaching of key knowledge and skills that pupils require to be successful in English. 

Writing will be taught and promoted in the following ways:

• The writing learning journeys provide children with opportunities to write at different points within the 2 week peiod and then will result in a final outcome at the end of the learning journey. These peices of writing could be independent or supportd by an adult in a group setting.
• Pieces of writing will also be carried out in other areas of the curriculum such as geography, history and science.  
• Children's extended writing will be marked in depth and feedback will also be given to the children throughout writing sessions so that they can improve their work a they are writing.  
•  In the Foundation Stage, children’s earliest attempts at writing will be encouraged in order to develop a positive image of themselves as writers.
• A range of real purposes and contexts will be provided for writing.
• Children will be introduced to PALS (Purpose, Audience, Layout, Style) and will be able to refer to this to inform the structure and layout of their written work.
•  Children will be taught ISPACE (different sentence starters – ing, simile, preposition, adverb, connective, ed) so that they are able to make informed choices about sentence structure when writing.
• Children will be encouraged to present their work with care, paying increasing attention to spelling, grammar, punctuation and handwriting as they become more confident and independent writers (see separate Spelling and Handwriting policies).
• Children will be encouraged to proof read and edit their writing in order to make improvements and then publish these as their 'best work.'
• Children will be taught how to plan their writing and encouraged to plan before they write.

The National Curriculum states that Writing in the Early Years and Key Stages 1 and 2 is split into two components: transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing).

Early Years Foundation Stage:

In the EYFS, children are introduced to writing as a way of communicating ideas alongside being taught phonics. Children are taught phonics through a discrete daily lesson where they are given the opportunity to write letters using the correct formation. Through a language rich environment, children are encouraged to write for a variety of purposes. Children have a balance of adult led writing tasks and opportunities in their play to explore their prior learning or practise new skills they have been taught. All attempts at writing are valued and children are supported to progress through the different developmental stages with carefully planned provision.

Writing

Key Stage 1:

Pupils moving from Foundation Stage into Key Stage 1 will be continuing to develop their phonic knowledge so that they can spell and write phonetically decodable words. There is also a greater focus on handwriting where children take part in frequent, discrete and direct handwriting sessions. This will enable the children to write at greater speed as they will be taught to form letters correctly and confidently.

In addition to developing these two elements, writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words. Children in Year 1 will focus on forming sentences orally and then writing them down and they also sequence sentences together to form a short narrative. Whilst children in Year 2 are taught to develop a positive attitude towards their writing stamina and they are encouraged to write for a range of purposes. During Year 2, different grammar elements are introduced to the children in discrete and direct lessons such as the use of apostrophes.

 Key Stage 2:

In addition to developing these two elements, pupils at Tower Hill are taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. In Lower Key Stage 2, pupils should be able to write down their ideas with a reasonable degree of accuracy and with good sentence punctuation. Teachers consolidate pupils’ writing skills, their vocabulary, their grasp of sentence structure and their knowledge of linguistic terminology. Teachers make sure that pupils build on what they have learnt, particularly in terms of the range of their writing and the more varied grammar, vocabulary and narrative structures from which they can draw to express their ideas.

In Upper Key Stage 2, children’s writing stamina has increased and children can confidently write extended pieces of writing. Children are taught to think carefully about PALS (purpose, audience, layout and style) and how this can have an effect on the reader. Children in upper key stage 2 are also taught explicit editing skills where they make a range of changes to their writing and they then re-draft and publish their work. Handwriting by the end of Key Stage 2 should be legible, joined, attaractive and presented in their own style.

 Spelling, Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation

At Tower Hill, opportunities for teachers to enhance pupils’ vocabulary arise naturally from their reading and writing. As vocabulary increases, teachers show pupils how to understand the relationships between words, how to understand nuances in meaning, and how to develop their understanding of, and ability to use, figurative language. They also teach pupils how to work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning.

From Years 2-6, spelling is taught using the RWI Spelling programme where children have direct, short spelling sessions 3/4 times a week. Children are also taught ‘challenge spellings’ taken from the National Curriculum word lists and are tested on these each half term. Grammar and punctuation is taught in different ways: discretely through shared and guided modelling and also during direct grammar sessions. These direct sessions will then link with the writing outcome where children will be expected to apply the skill they have been taught in their written piece. 

Impact:

By the end of each Key Stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the National Curriculum. All class teachers will assess their children both informally and formally throughout each term and report their formal assessments to the English Leader and Assessment Leader at each Milestone data collection point. Class teachers will use a range of assessments including Points of Application, EGPS tests, Teacher Assessment, Tower Hill Writing Statements, Spelling tests etc to make an informed decision about each child’s progress and attainment. Class teachers will also participate in termly moderation sessions to share work and moderate judgements for reading and writing.

Assessments are used by teachers to evaluate learning and inform teaching and by teachers and senior leaders to evaluate individual and groups of children’s achievements to inform future provision and potentially school development.

Assessment in English also includes:

• On-going Assessment for Learning (AfL) practices within class and group sessions, including the sharing of and reference being made to learning objectives and ‘no ceiling’ success criteria, as well as self and peer assessments of understanding, outcomes and progress.
• Marking of children’s work; against the shared learning objective in line with our school expectations (see separate Feedback Policy).
• Half-termly writing assessments (points of Application) which are assessed against the Tower Hill writing statements.