Writing

Our intent is that every pupil at Woodthorne will become a confident, competent writer and develop their own authentic writing voices. Writing gives children a way to effectively communicate with others: to share their ideas, thoughts, emotions, cultural identity and express who they are. Through a text-rich writing curriculum, we will expose children to new worlds, experiences and ideas, expanding their vocabulary and their horizons. Our choice of texts will introduce pupils to a cultural and social context beyond those they are familiar with and provide opportunities for children to study an extensive range of books ensuring that by the time children leave us they are able to access the more complex texts expected of them at secondary school.

Writing is a key life skill which enables children to express themselves, communicate with others and access other areas of the curriculum. It is a complex process which requires motor skills to manipulate pencils and pens, a command of sentence and text structure, grammar and punctuation, an ability to edit and evaluate both their own and others writing, a knowledge of how spoken language translates to the written word, an awareness of purpose and audience across different genres and involves a competency in spelling and handwriting.

Our ambitious English curriculum is designed so that children will gain the skills they need to become accomplished writers, enabling them to be courageous in expressing themselves clearly and confidently for a wide range of purposes. Our children will learn to listen to one another and respectfully critique and feedback on each other’s learning with understanding. This will be embedded through carefully planned opportunities for oracy and peer assessment within each writing cycle.

All children will be provided with meaningful contexts and purposes to achieve excellence in writing across the curriculum. We aim to provide an environment for language development and written work, which is stimulating and is characterised by high expectations of success so that the fullest potential of each individual child may be realised. As competent, confident writers, Woodthorne pupils will have the power to make their own voices heard, to influence others and to influence the lifelong love of learning in others.

Our EYFS curriculum has been formulated using the statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (effective September 2021), the non-statutory guidance set out in Development Matters (July 2021) and Birth to 5 Matters by Early Education (2021).  In the EYFS at Woodthorne, our intent is to create a balance between adult initiated learning and following our children’s interests. We endeavour to make learning active, hands on and- most importantly- exciting by following each class’ area of curiosity.

Children begin their journey from non-readers to readers at the start of Nursery. In both Nursery and Reception, children are read to on a daily basis during teacher time and child initiated time. Books are available in all areas of learning to encourage children to choose and read freely. Children are continually learning new vocabulary through the use of PILS, ‘words of the week’, and schemes such as Talk For Writing, Talking Circles and NELI. All children visit the school library on a regular basis and Reception children visit the local library. Children choose a picture book to take home each week.