Writing Intent

At Oakfield, we believe that all our children can become fluent and successful writers, who are knowledgeable about the different motivations to write such as to teach, to persuade or influence, entertain, paint with words, reflect and to make a record. We aim to foster a love of writing through promoting high-expectations yet with fail-safe environments where children can experiment with ambitious vocabulary choices across a range of genre, learning to self-edit their work to make improvements. Reading and writing are inextricably linked in our teaching and, as a result of this, each English lesson begins with the sharing and exploration of high-quality texts linked to their current topic with a strong focus in each year group on vocabulary development-i.e. exploring the meaning, origin, purpose and synonyms of a chosen word or words-depending on the year group. We begin each half-term with a week exploring poetry with an aim to develop vocabulary and creativity, followed by approximately 2-3 weeks exploring the genre of fiction, followed by approximately 2-3 weeks exploring the genre of Non-fiction. The mastery approach is adopted throughout all our lessons with the inclusion of challenge added to each task.

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

From EYFS, the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme is followed to ensure a consistent teaching of phonics. In Nursery, phonetic knowledge is developed through the environment and 1 taught session a week, through to reception where children make a strong start to their acquisition of phonetic knowledge with daily phonic sessions from Autumn week 2, continuing throughout Key Stage 1. From Years 2-6, the Spelling Shed scheme is used with a taught spelling session on a Monday and spellings sent home with children that day.

Spelling, punctuation and grammar are recognised as the essential ingredients for writing and so, at Oakfield, we have developed a programme for teaching grammar and punctuation (in accordance with the National Curriculum guidelines) which incorporates the use of ‘Alan Peat’ sentence types. It is an expectation that children will cover the grammar, punctuation and sentence types for their current year group and demonstrate these within their writing.