What Makes English Special at Our School?

English is a central part of the curriculum at Stanway Primary School and there are several ways that we engage and enthuse our pupils in their writing:

 · High-quality texts are at the heart of learning: Most of our writing units are based on rich and engaging texts encompassing a         range of different genres.

 · Cross-curricular writing opportunities: Pupils regularly apply their writing skills across different subjects, making meaningful           links and deepening their understanding.

 · Writing with purpose: Pupils are given purposeful reasons to write, including sending letters to a real-life person or company,         or producing reports related to their current topic. We also aim to hold annual whole-school writing competitions to encourage     creativity and individuality.

 · Developing skills throughout a unit: Pupils focus on one genre per writing unit, enabling them to build upon, and develop, their     grammatical skills, and identify the key features of the text type.

 · Writing Process: Pupils follow the writing process for each piece of writing (plan, draft, revise, edit, publish), enabling them to         refine and improve upon their work.

 · Big Writes: At the end of each unit, pupils produce a best piece of independent work in their Big Write books.

Supporting Every Child to Succeed

We are committed to ensuring that every child can access and enjoy writing. To support this, we provide:

 · Sentence stems and scaffolds to help structure ideas

 · WAGOLLs (What A Good One Looks Like) as clear models

 · Word mats to build vocabulary and independence

 · Pre-teaching of key vocabulary to boost confidence

 · Carefully differentiated scaffolding and outcomes to meet all learners’ needs

Enriching Writing Experiences

Through our rich and engaging English curriculum, we nurture confident readers, imaginative writers, and a lifelong love of language. We strongly believe that writing is something to be shared, celebrated and enjoyed.

 · Pupils are encouraged to see themselves as authors

 · Pupils share their work with buddy classes, developing their pride, confidence and audience awareness

 · Writing is often purposeful and linked to real-life contexts

 · Learning is rooted in high-quality texts

 · Engaging ‘hooks’ at the start of a unit capture imagination and spark enthusiasm