Heatherlands Primary School
Enjoying Learning Together
Writing
The Writing 'Big Ideas'
The ‘Big Ideas’ relate to elements within a subject discipline or refer to important concepts that contribute to pupils’ personal and social development. It is essential that the ‘Big Ideas’ within each subject are understood by the children and become part of their common classroom language. In science, these 'Big Ideas' are:
- Accuracy
- Creativity
- Style
CLP Writing progression document
English for communication, consolidation and community
At Heatherlands Primary School, communication is at the heart of the curriculum. All children will be equipped with the skills they need to interact with the learning in all subjects, and to navigate their daily lives. Teaching and learning in English provides the bedrock for developing excellent communication skills: within spoken language, within reading and within writing.
We have a text-driven English curriculum, whereby high-quality texts support progress and outcomes in reading and writing. Children are encouraged to read widely; in the earlier stages to decode, and then to develop fluency and confidence, which in turn will build their comprehension skills. High quality literature sparks children’s imaginations and inspires high quality writing outcomes in each year group.
As the National Curriculum 2014 states, “Pupils’ acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to their learning and progress across the whole curriculum.” The school aims to cultivate a vocabulary-rich environment, as a means to helping all children develop their experience and understanding of the world.
Consolidation happens through regular opportunities for the children to put their learning in all areas of English into practice independently, not only within English but in foundation subjects too. These “sites of application” of learning provide robust opportunities for teachers to assess children’s performance.
Through the English curriculum, children consolidate the essential skills for effective communication and are thus equipped to become confident and eloquent members of the community, on a school level, a local level and a global level. They will be given the skills to take an active role in life as a British citizen.
Writing
All of the children's English work is linked to a wide range of high quality texts by a range of classic and modern authors.
English national curriculum:
Parent Workshops
Throughout the school year there are various phonics, reading and writing workshops available for you to attend. Details of these will be sent to you by letter.
Advice for hearing your child read and spell:
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/welcome-back/for-home/reading-owl/top-tips--3
“You can make anything with writing” – CS Lewis
We put writing firmly at the heart of the classroom, with our “See How Far We’ve Come!” displays in each classroom. These writing displays show off each child’s work at different stages of the year. The children use the same stimulus and the work they produce is visible on the wall of every classroom, demonstrating clearly that we value and celebrate our children’s writing.