Writing Intent and Implementation  

It is our intent at Carlton Junior and Infants School to provide all pupils with a high-quality education in English that will teach our children to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively.

At Carlton writing is a key part of our curriculum. All children from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum.

Our aim is to equip children with the skills needed to be able to orally rehearse, plan, compose, revise and evaluate their writing. To be able to do this effectively, pupils will develop an understanding of the importance of spoken language and Standard English. They will engage with quality texts and enrichment activities to write with a clear purpose in mind. The pupils will also develop an awareness of the audience and context. Through teaching through a text, we aim to increase the children’s knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Our intention is that pupils will leave school being able to write in a fluent and legible manner.

With regards to spelling, orthographic memory is vital for learning to spell, however it doesn't work alone. Spelling memory is enhanced by a child's awareness of phonemes, speech sounds, word structure and word knowledge. Teachers will show pupils how to understand the relationships between words and how to develop their understanding of and ability to use language. They will also teach pupils how to work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning. Please see our page on Cracking Spelling.

Writing is evident in every aspect of our curriculum and varying text types are taught throughout the school. We use a range of quality texts to hook and engage our children. The objectives of the National Curriculum are closely followed to ensure that the skills learnt in spelling, punctuation and grammar are embedded and transferred into writing. Lessons are carefully planned following a clear journey, starting with reading as a writer where we unpick the text. We then move onto looking at features of the final piece of writing. The sequence then continues with the explicit teaching of vocabulary where pupils are given a language rich curriculum and are encouraged and shown how to effectively use interesting and adventurous language in their writing. This is followed by explicit grammar teaching relating to the text which the children will use in their finished piece of writing. The journey concludes with the children planning, writing, proofreading and editing in order to complete their unit of work.