English
At Meadow View, we are fully committed to delivering the National Curriculum.
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Key skills in English permeate all areas of the curriculum and contribute to the social, emotional and educational development of each child.
Children need to be able to communicate effectively and express themselves with confidence, read fluently and accurately, with understanding and with enjoyment and communicate through written language showing a clear understanding of grammar.
‘English is both a subject in its own right and the medium for teaching: for pupils, understanding the language provides access to the whole curriculum. Fluency in the English language is an essential foundation for success in all subjects’ The National Curriculum in England, July 2014.
Intent:
At Meadow View JMI, we passionately believe that writing is an essential, life-long skill. We endeavour to inspire our pupils to write, igniting their imaginations and giving them the tools to help them write competently and confidently. We want our pupils to leave Meadow View with the ability to write independently, fluently and with stamina, adapting their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences. We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in their presentation and pupils will be encouraged to develop their own handwriting style, showcasing their work to the highest standard.
Implementation:
We have recently taken on the ‘I am a Clever Writer’ approach (from Year 1 to Year 6) which ensures a consistent, streamlined approach to writing. We closely follow a skills progression document which we teach explicitly giving the children the opportunity to then use these skills daily in their writing. Each week the children complete a star write which gives them a platform to showcase all the skills they have been taught. Texts are carefully chosen to ensure our pupils are exposed to a wide variety of authors and genres which are aimed to inspire their creativity and writing. Assessment for learning is a key driver when planning lessons and teaching is adapted to suit the needs of the class, embedding previously taught skills whilst also introducing new skills. Foundation Stage have taken the principles of this approach and have incorporated these into their daily English sessions. There is an emphasis on ensuring correct letter formation and developing language skills to support the writing process.
Impact:
We believe this approach has been instrumental in raising standards of writing across the school and has led to high levels of engagement from our children and staff. Both pupil and staff voice show that there is a pride in work that is being produced and progress has been accelerated from the starting points in the year. Learning walks, book monitoring, summative and formative assessments and moderation all support evidence to show the impact of our writing curriculum and allow us to monitor progress across all year groups.
At Meadow View, we use Letter Join as our handwriting scheme which provides a consistent approach to letter formation across our school. Children in our Foundation Stage begin using print for their letter formation, concentrating on correctly forming their letters before beginning their pre-cursive writing in Year 1. In Year 2, children begin to join their writing.
We use the Spelling Shed resources to teach our children the spelling patterns and common exception words from Year 2 onwards. This provides us with the National curriculum coverage and a progressive scheme of work. Children have a designated spelling lesson every week and are given the opportunity to practise spelling patters several times during the week.
Please use the links below to access out Writing curriculum