Coppice Farm Primary School

EnglISH

English Lead: Miss B Sharp

Intent

At Coppice Farm Primary School, we recognise the importance of English and its place in both education and wider society. It is an imperative building block in readying our children for not only secondary school, but adulthood and the world of work. Our intent is to use high quality texts to inspire our English units which provides children with the opportunity to be exposed to a breadth of literature, from English classics, fairytales and modern adaptations; to comics, picture books and biographies. Our goal is to show our children that there is something for everybody to enjoy and to help them to develop a love of reading which will hopefully last a lifetime. As our English curriculum is led by ambition texts, rather than genre led, our goal is to provide children with the skills they need to be competent writers for a variety of purposes. We believe that it is imperative to build a rich, creative curriculum which enables and encourages a love of reading and writing for all children. Children enjoy being fully-immersed in texts through the use of exciting learning opportunities such as drama techniques and ICT work. All children at Coppice Farm Primary School are encouraged to take pride in their work and complete everything they do to the best of their ability. A key component of their English learning is acquiring the skills to recognise how to edit and improve their writing. By the time our children leave us at the end of year 6, our goal is to ensure that they are competent, confident writers who are equipped with the skills necessary to be successful in the next phase of their learning journey and beyond.

Implementation

English units are inspired by challenging and inspiring texts across school
Thoughtfully planned lessons are linked directly to learning objectives taken from the National Curriculum
Units of learning include reading, writing and oracy objectives ensuring meaningful links between different areas of the English curriculum
All teachers use a variety of teaching techniques to engage and inspire all children in their learning
High-quality modelling is a key part of our teaching process
All children write daily
Carefully planned opportunities for children to apply their learning in wider curriculum areas
In EYFS and Key Stage 1, all children follow the handwriting scheme attached to their Monster Phonics program
In KS2, all children have regular handwriting lessons derived from our handwriting policy
Writing is assessed half-termly against our assessment criteria which are directly linked to National Curriculum objectives
A clear, colour-coded marking policy ensures that children are able to successfully edit and improve their work

Impact

Children will be able to produce quality written work across all areas of the curriculum

Children will make at least good progress from their last point of statutory assessment or their starting point in EYFS

Children will have a love of reading and writing and enjoy applying their learnt skills independently for pleasure

Children will use their English knowledge and skills across all curriculum areas to enable them to know more, remember more and understand more

Writing for Pleasure

We want our learners to write because they want to; because they find it enjoyable; because they recognise the benefit of it. Therefore, every child from year one to year six has their very own Writing for Pleasure Journal. Each week, they have dedicated Writing for Pleasure time where they enjoy writing what they want, in the style they want, for whatever purpose they want. Over time, children have become very creative in how they use this time and choose to write stories, riddles, jokes and even song lyrics. For children who find it difficult to independently think of an idea of what to write, teachers provide stimulus such as pictures or music to inspire them. This work is not marked or scrutinised in any way, it is an opportunity for our children to express themselves, through their writing, without any rules!

Writing in the Early Years

As soon as our children join us in Enchanted Elm, they begin their journey of becoming writers. They enjoy a variety of activities which develop their fine motor skills which in turn enables them to properly hold their pens and pencils. They have fun mark making with lots of different tools before beginning to form letters. As part of their Monster Phonics scheme, they learn to write the sounds that they learn each week, creating meaningful links between their reading and writing skills from as young as four years old. Children study a breadth of story books linked to their topics, instilling a love of reading from as early as possible which hopefully will follow them through school. In their continuous provision, thoughtfully planned activities are made available to encourage independent application of their learning.