English at Culcheth Community Primary School
Writing
At Culcheth Community Primary School we believe that developing writing skills is one of the core purposes of primary education.
When pupils enjoy what they are writing about, they write more and they write with increased skill and enthusiasm to succeed. We link our text-based writing curriculum, as much as possible, to our topic curriculum to provide our children with language rich, relevant and focused writing opportunities. Writing is integral to our children’s whole language experience. When pupils have a clear sense of a real world audience that lies beyond the classroom, their writing is focused and they approach the task with a heightened sense of purpose. The audience might consist of parents, local government, visitors to the public library or perhaps visitors to the school website. At Culcheth Community Primary School we believe that writing should be both inspiring yet challenging and enable our pupils to become motivated and adept writers in a range of situations.
A whole school English overview is available to download below.
How is writing taught at Culcheth Community Primary School?
We use our topic themes, wherever possible, to provide meaningful writing experiences through contexts and to enhance learning. High quality texts are used to challenge, enthuse and engage children. There is planned progression in the teaching of writing, including exploring features, planning, drafting, assessing and editing through the familiarisation of the text type, the identification of structure and language features, modelled writing, shared writing, supported composition, guided writing and independent writing.
Handwriting
Presentation is a priority at Culcheth Community Primary School and we are committed to providing the children with the skills necessary to write their work fluently, legibly and eventually with good pace. We expect the children to use a cursive handwriting style, which they start to learn in EYFS. We establish high expectations and pride in everything we do – both of ourselves and of the children. Children of all abilities are expected and able to present their work to their highest possible standard increasing their confidence and self-esteem.
Talk for Writing
Talk for Writing is an approach which supports children to explore, through talk, the thinking and creative processes involved in being a writer. It is embedded at an early age at Culcheth Community Primary School, with our KS1 and KS2 children successfully using it to improve their writing. Talk for Writing is an approach that goes beyond the development of children’s general spoken language skills – it allows children to explore the processes involved in being a writer, and extends oral rehearsal so that it becomes a draft for their written pieces. The approach supports the move from talk into writing and is hugely enjoyable for the children. All school staff have had Fiction and Non-Fiction Talk for Writing training and are using these strategies to support the teaching of writing across the school.
Spelling
In the 2014 National Curriculum, the Government specified particular words which they believe it is important for children to be able to spell at different ages. There are suggested words for Years 1 and 2 but word lists provided for Years 3 and 4 and Years 5 and 6. From Year 2 upwards we follow the 'Read, Write, Inc. Spelling' programme and resources in school.
The word lists are available on the National Curriculum Overviews below.
Reading schemes
At Culcheth Community Primary School we have a well planned and resourced reading scheme starting with the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised books and moving onto Oxford University Press book banded books. All of the children are assessed using the Little Wandle assessments and then following completion of the phonics programme, they are assessed using the Benchmarking scheme and allocated reading books using the book banding system. In this way the children are able to access a rich range of reading material at the appropriate level.
Lexia, an online personalised reading program, is used to support the teaching of reading once the children are phonically secure.
In Key stage 2, children begin to access Reading Plus as an additional resource to support reading, develop comprehension and vocabulary.
The whole school also has access to 'Collins ebooks' which is an online programme that provides the children with access to hundreds of books.
Please see our reading page for further information on reading at our school.
Phonics
At Culcheth Community Primary School phonics is taught through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised systematic synthetic phonics programme.
Please see our phonics page for a clear explanation of the different phases and how this programme is used in school.
