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Writing

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”

John Jakes

We believe that the ability to effectively communicate is at the heart of the future success of every one of our pupils. The English curriculum at Stansfield Hall is designed to give pupils the tools they need to be able to engage with the world around them. Writing is a crucial 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. We follow the National Curriculum and the EYFS framework, and the texts used by The Literacy Tree are used to inspire our units. 

Our intention is for pupils to be able to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. To be able to do this effectively, pupils will focus on developing effective transcription and effective composition. They will also develop an awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. We also intend for pupils to leave school being able to use fluent, legible and speedy handwriting as well as being confident spellers. The children are taught writing skills using ‘The Literacy Tree‘ as an inspiration for many of our units. We use the texts and the planning as a base as well as incorporating our own curriculum-based writing opportunities to embed knowledge from our broad and balanced curriculum. All of the grammar and punctuation elements of the National Curriculum are embedded in the writing process, so that it is learned in context. At Stansfield Hall, we cover a range of fiction and non-fiction genres, covering the skills, which then lead up to children producing a piece of independent writing. 

We believe the exposure of children’s literature is vital as a rich context for learning; not only within English as a subject but to support building a reading culture throughout the school. At Stansfield Hall we recognise the importance of early language development in creating opportunities later in life. From this, our English Curriculum has been developed to support a life-long appreciation of reading and writing.  We love reading and want every child to discover their own love of reading before they leave our school. On top of understanding the importance of reading to acquire knowledge, we want our pupils to know and enjoy the pleasure of books. Our strong and growing reading culture helps provide a rich context for learning both inside and out of the classroom. 

We choose engaging, high quality books that are representative of our diverse community and allow the children to see and understand the world through different lenses. Through these texts, we create opportunities for children to develop empathy and philosophical enquiry. Similarly, our pupils develop spoken language through debate, drama and discussion about the issues raised in the texts. As a school, we value how our text choices can help expand our pupils’ knowledge beyond their immediate experiences.  Creating a vocabulary-rich learning environment is important for our school community. We know that unlocking new words and language opens doors for future learning and life experiences. Frequent visits, trips out of school and WOW days provide valuable stimuli for the learning of new vocabulary. 

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