1. Our curriculum will represent, value and celebrate the diverse society in which we live

Throughout our English curriculum we seek opportunities for our pupils to see themselves and each other in the texts that they are studying. We believe writing is at its best and most inspired when pupils can identify with their protagonist. We choose texts and resources that encourage our pupils to look beyond their own life experiences and see the world from different perspectives.

2. All children will develop into confident, articulate communicators.

Through English lessons, we strive to provide opportunities for all of our children to communicate in a variety of ways. Through providing meaningful tasks with a clear audience, we want our children to write for purpose, selecting appropriate grammar and vocabulary that reflects the necessary formality for the style of writing. Within each lesson, we encourage pupils to experiment with unfamiliar language, growing in confidence to carefully select words and ideas that are best suited to the subject, audience and purpose.  Our classroom environments are language-rich environments that support the children’s development.

3. All children will be challenged.

We seek to set challenges in learning which stretch children and make them think, consider new ideas and push themselves. To support them, we look to ensure that the tools that we use to model learning promote the aspiration to all of our children that they can meet these challenges. We aim to structure lessons in ways so that lofty goals seem, and are, achievable. Within lessons, we aim to expose children to the best literature on offer, to fuel their ideas, inspire them, and show what can be possible. In keeping with our motto of ‘Growing Together’, we promote the value of feedback as a tool to help challenge us and improve our writing further.

4. The topic and content of our Curriculum will be varied, immersive and engaging.

The writing that the children study and produce themselves should speak to them; it should involve characters they can identify with, explore issues where they have something to say and fuel their imaginations. Our curriculum is topic based and, where possible, we aim to harness our children’s understanding of History, Geography and Science to enhance their writing by providing contexts linked to their wider learning.

Writing experiences must be varied frequently and, as such, we aim to expose children to a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry every term, from a diverse range of authors, poets and other sources. Learning journeys are mapped out to give variety to lessons, while ensuring that they are always rooted in high-quality literature.

5. All children will use their creativity.

It is our aim to ensure that our children value their own creativity and feel confident to share original thoughts and ideas. We seek to develop a writing environment that encourages risk-taking.  Our writing curriculum provides opportunities for low stakes tasks in which children experiment with new skills and analyse the impact of careful language choices. Writing is a collaborative process - our pupils imitate the techniques and compositional tools of existing authors to supplement their own ideas. We strive to give our pupils quality time to reflect on their writing, reimagining how best to help an audience visualise or understand an idea.

6. All children will become happy, empathetic and confident citizens.

Their writing gives our children an opportunity to express themselves, what is unique about them and what they value, and feel strongly about. On many occasions, it gives them the chance to share these things with wider audiences, within the school and beyond, developing their confidence. Real-life purposes for writing will be provided wherever possible, and these help the children to explore current issues relevant to their own lives, such as aspects of Global Learning.

In writing lessons, we promote a culture of reflection and improvement; we aim to develop resilience through giving and receiving feedback in a constructive way.  We want our children to embrace feedback and see it as a tool to further challenge themselves. We want them to develop empathy in the way that they give their advice to others. We are a learning community and this process is key to helping the children understand what this means and looks like in practise.