East Halton English (Writing) Curriculum Intent

Our primary school curriculum is carefully designed to ensure a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all pupils. The curriculum intent aims to inspire a love for learning, foster curiosity, and equip pupils with the skills and knowledge they need to flourish academically and personally. It is rooted in a deep understanding of the local community that ensures that we ‘value our past’, celebrate diversity, promote cultural capital, prepare pupils for life in modern Britain and ‘look to the future with hope’.

Commitment to our pupils is fulfilled through our high aspiration, passion and drive and is founded upon the following four key principles:

1. Unlocking children's true academic potential to ensure that they ‘flourish’.

We aim to develop confident, resilient, inquisitive, independent & knowledgeable children through the delivery of a coherent & structured enquiry based curriculum which builds on prior learning from nursery to year 6. Individuals are challenged to reach their true potential and be ready for the next stage in their education. We want our children to believe in the transformative power of change and to ‘look to the future with hope’ in their hearts.

In English (Writing) we do this through:

• Engaging our children in the writing journey and process through a broad range of genres, authors and texts and exciting writing opportunities that are relevant to their own lives and contexts but also relevant to the lives and contexts of others nationally and globally

• Providing a writing curriculum that is progressive and builds upon previous learning, with regular assessment to ensure each child’s needs are met to reach their full potential

• Building a writing curriculum which ensures full coverage of the National Curriculum, develops learning and results in the acquisition of knowledge and skills that enable children to be ‘effective’ writers

• Guiding and nurturing each individual on their own personal journeys to becoming successful writers, harnessing individual creativity and flair

• Enabling all children to acquire a wide vocabulary and to be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school

• Ensuring that all children have a solid understanding of grammar and apply it effectively to their writing.

• Exposure and teaching the children to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

• Encouraging all children to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a legible, cursive, individual handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school

• Incorporating cross-curricular links in writing, to ensure that areas of the curriculum feed into, enhance one another and join together to build a ‘bigger picture’ understanding

• Enhancing children’s outcomes across the school

• Providing every child with a good knowledge of phonics to springboard children to becoming fluent writers

2. Unlocking children’s true social and emotional potential to ensure that they ‘flourish’ as unique, well-rounded individuals.

We aim to foster happy and healthy children, within a safe environment, who are given the help they need to learn, grow and achieve as much as they possibly can in an atmosphere which nourishes a healthy mind and body. We want our children to believe that each one of them holds the power to make a difference in the world through ‘doing all of the good they can.’ 

In English (writing) we do this through:

• British values - Our chosen texts cover themes of hidden disabilities, black history, significant women, refugees and immigration, gender, individuality and inclusivity

• Pupil voice about writing

• Children will learn lessons from the texts they read/ write from to influence the decisions they make in their lives today and in the future - the children will learn to argue, persuade, discuss and inspire through the power of the written and spoken word

• Workshops and visits will be delivered that excite and intrigue our children to find out more about authors, writing and the impact that we, as writers, are able to have on our readers

• Celebration days – World Book Day, Poetry Recital, ‘A Poem in a Day’

3. Unlocking children’s true potential to ‘flourish’ as life-long learners through raising individual expectations, self-belief and exposure to ‘opportunity’

We aim to help our children to be aware of and see ‘opportunity’ beyond their locality and starting points through exposure to the wider world. We aim to provide a broad, balanced curriculum with a wide variety of experiences which nurture the talents and interests of our children enabling them to become resilient, creative, enquiring learners and effective communicators who persevere and aspire for excellence.

In English (writing) we do this through:

• Books from other cultures covering a range of contexts and topical issues for children to explore and investigate

• A range of genres and authors ar covered progressively to enable our children to extend their learning beyond their locality and through  range of perspectives, genres and text types

• Planned opportunities to learn about writing and apply the skills of writing within a wider context alongside other curriculum subjects

• Visitors to school from local partnerships. e.g writers, authors, journalists, poets.

4. For our children to ‘do all of the good they can’ by broadening their horizons and developing each of them as a responsible local and global citizen. 

We want our children to appreciate their role as part of our community. We encourage them to ask questions, make informed choices and to take responsibility for the decisions they make. As a result we hope to foster in our children an awareness of the difference they can make as local & global citizens, treating others with compassion and respect.

In English (writing) we do this through:

• Black History Month – diverse range of authors and contexts/ writing opportunities

• World Refugee day - specifically chosen texts/ writing opportunities

• Remembrance – visiting war memorial service, church at school

• Trips and Visits

• Long Term Plan (including carefully chosen class texts) enables children to write across a range of genres linked to ‘making a difference’ through the context of the texts covered and their cross curricular links to other subjects (celebrating diversity) - writing to persuade/ argue/ discuss to a range of audiences - celebrating the ability to make a difference through the power of words

Writing Curriculum Intent Map East Halton

[pdf 373KB]