Aims:

At Holy Family, we believe that literacy and communication are key life skills. Through the English curriculum, we will help children develop the skills and knowledge that will enable them to communicate effectively and creatively through spoken and written language and equip them with the skills to become lifelong learners. Therefore, by the time children leave our school, we expect them to communicate through speaking and listening, reading and writing, with confidence, fluency and understanding and in a range of situations.

Children at Holy Family are taught to write clearly, accurately and coherently for a range of contexts; write in different styles and for different purposes and audiences; develop a wide vocabulary and a solid understanding of the grammar rules and terminology appropriate for their age group; apply spelling patterns correctly and use neat handwriting. To do this we immerse the children in a rich, creative and carefully planned curriculum so that they are writing for real and engaging purposes; we strive for children to write with confidence and use an increasingly wide range of sophisticated, well-chosen vocabulary, we encourage children to take pride in the presentation of their writing, and develop a neat, joined, handwriting style by the time they leave our school and move to secondary school and we teach children spelling and grammar both discretely and as part of our analysis of texts and provide opportunities for them to apply these skills to their own writing. Therefore, units of work are carefully planned, they enable children to become proficient in the writing process: planning, drafting and editing their writing to suit the purpose, and ensure children make progress towards the defined end goals as outlined in the National Curriculum.

How we deliver our English curriculum (writing):
Alongside developing the children's knowledge of the rudiments of writing (the rules of spelling and grammar), we also focus on children being able to use the knowledge they have to produce purposeful, well-crafted, creative written work. Central to our philosophy is that writing must be for a purpose. Rather than trying to teach children ten or more different genres or text types (which can actually be used for a variety of purposes), our approach focuses on what those different types have in common: the purpose for writing.

The four purposes to write being taught across KS1 and KS2 are:

• to entertain
• to inform
• to persuade
• to discuss

Although coverage of the four purposes of writing is prescriptive, the order in which they are completed is up to teacher discretion, their knowledge of the curriculum approach and progress of children in their particular year group.