Writing at Old Sarum Primary

Intent:

Through our English curriculum, Old Sarum Primary School promotes high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language. Pupils are supported to develop their love of writing through our Talk4Writing approach to writing.

Our curriculum for writing ensures that all pupils: 

• Read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• Are competent in the art of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

Implementation:

• Planning is built around the Talk4Writing (T4W) methodology. We choose our texts and engaging hooks from an exploration of the backgrounds of our students, our beliefs about high quality education and our values. They are used to ensure we give our students appropriate and ambitious curriculum opportunities.
• We explore the writing of classic, high quality authors across all year groups.
• The breadth of model texts used/created is shaped by our curriculum, cultural capital, subject topics and our ambition for students to study the best of what has been thought and said by many generations of academics and scholars. We aim to plan for the study of at least one fiction and one non-fiction text each half term.
• Cognitive science tell us that working memory is limited and that cognitive load is too high if students are rushed through content. This limits the acquisition of long-term memory. Cognitive science also tells us that in order for students to become creative thinkers, or have a greater depth of understanding they must first master the basics, which takes time. This feeds into the T4W scheme, where repetition is key and ‘revisits’ are a part of everyday learning.

Impact:

We are ambitious for all our children and strive to ensure that we provide all children with the skills needed for them to become successful writers, no matter what their starting point, background or additional needs. By the end of KS2 we expect our children to:

• Enjoy writing and view themselves as effective, competent writers
• Have a good understanding of the purpose of writing and be able to write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences.
• Have a wide vocabulary that they use within their writing.
• Leave primary school being able to effectively apply spelling rules and patterns they have been taught.

We aim to meet the expectations of the Early Learning Goals and the National Curriculum and when possible, exceed these and ensure that children make good progress in Writing during their time at Old Sarum. Therefore, we aim to nurture fluent and confident writers who can write across different genres, for different audiences and for different purposes.