English WRITING INTENT, IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT STATEMENT 

Curriculum Intent

At John Burns Primary School, our intent is to:

• Guide and nurture pupils to become successful, life-long writers.
• Provide exciting writing opportunities and experiences that engage and enhance all pupils.
• Ensure every child masters the skills of punctuation, sentence structure, transcription, spelling and redrafting so that they are able to communicate effectively through a range of text types. 
• Develop a curiosity surrounding vocabulary and language where pupils develop a sophisticated bank of vocabulary that they are able to draw upon both within writing and conversation.
• Understand the power of the written word and the impact that writing can have upon others.

Curriculum Implementation

At John Burns Primary School:

• Teachers have a yearly overview of what texts to teach writing skills through for each half term. Fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts are all included. The overview document also includes what written outcomes should be produced (usually inspired by the text being studied) by the children and what the purpose of the writing is for.
• Weekly English planning, leading towards an extended written outcome, is underpinned by a phased approach: Phase 1 – read and deconstruct one or more WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) identifying features used in a specific genre, Phase 2 – explore the language, capture own ideas, plan and prewrite, Phase 3 – modelled writing, shared composition, independent writing, evaluate, edit and publish.
• Children have the opportunity to share ideas with their peers, during shared composition sections of modelled writing and through their independent written outcome.
• Evidence of this phased writing process is evident in pupils’ yellow English workbooks and on English working walls in classrooms.
• High quality presentation is strived for through following a cursive handwriting scheme. Adults model correct letter formation, both in discrete handwriting sessions and when writing in workbooks or on the whiteboard/flipchart.
• Teachers deliver the relevant grammar and punctuation for their year group as set out by the National Curriculum. This is taught both explicitly in stand-alone weekly lessons and applied within the context of writing for a purpose.
• Specific spelling rules and strategies for spelling are delivered discretely using the No-Nonsense Spelling scheme in KS2.
• Weekly spelling tests linked to the weekly spelling rule or strategy take place each week.
• Effective CPD is available to staff to ensure high levels of confidence and knowledge are maintained.
• In writing lessons, differentiation through bespoke success criteria (depending on the experience of the writer) and through teacher-led guided groups, ensures that all pupils can access the writing curriculum.
• Assessment is informed by observations during daily English lessons, verbal feedback and through weekly written improvement marking of writing (two strengths identified with one next step identified).
• Teachers use detailed writing assessment grids for their year group at half termly writing moderation meetings to record accurate summative judgements (Working Towards/Working At/Working Above age-related Expectations) each term. These are discussed at pupil progress meetings and shared in end of year reports for all KS1 and KS2 pupils.
• At the end of Year 2 (KS1) and Year 6 (KS2) pupils will be given teacher-assessed judgements in Writing (Working Towards/Working At/Working Above age-related Expectations) based on ‘pupil can’ statements found in the relevant ARA framework for each key stage.

Curriculum Impact

At John Burns Primary School, our pupils will:

• Enjoy writing and view it as relevant and purposeful, and as a vehicle to communicate their ideas across a range of subjects.
• Enjoy talking about their writing and show enthusiasm in wanting to improve the effect of their writing on their reading audience.
• Be proud of their writing and have the opportunity to see it on display and shared with others in the school and with their families.
• Have high aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.