Writing Intent:

At Broomhill Junior School we recognise that English is essential to all aspects of everyday life. We strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world. By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now, and in their futures. They can indeed ‘Aspire to be more’. Our intent is to design a curriculum which is accessible to all and is ambitious in order to maximize the development of every child’s ability and academic achievement. We deliver lessons that are creative and engaging. We teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively whilst making rich connections across the entire curriculum and everyday life. Our curriculum is ambitious for all and coherently planned and sequenced. It is underpinned by the belief that, in essence, reading is breathing in; writing is breathing out.

At Broomhill Junior School, we believe that all pupils should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn. We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We believe that all pupils should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a good, joined handwriting style.  For presentation to be neat in children’s books, staff are aware that joined handwriting needs to be consistently modelled.

We believe that all good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. We do not put ceilings on what pupils can achieve in writing and we do not hold preconceptions about any pupils’ ability to make progress. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both grammar, spelling and composition skills, and so we want to encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school.

Monitoring of planning shows that writing is progressive across school, with grammar being taught weekly or being integrated into writing lessons.  Staff use shared writes and modelled writing to model high standards to children. Slow writes are also used to help children generate ideas for their writing.

Curriculum Implementation for Writing:

At Broomhill, we have reflected over the past four years to develop a creative writing curriculum tailored to our children, resulting in a multimodal approach to writing lessons.

Writing lessons integrate age-appropriate grammar, oracy, drama and talk for writing where appropriate. Models of writing are discussed and the features are analysed before children are explicitly taught how to write and develop good quality sentences. Grammar is often integrated into writing lessons and taught alongside the writing genre children are learning about; however, there may be occasions where grammar is taught discretely (for example, when revising for Year 6 SATs). When learning about different genres of writing and prior to creating their own, children are encouraged to create their own success steps for writing. They then refer back to these, using both peer and self-assessment to check the effectiveness of their work. Once children have written, they are encouraged to improve their writing by editing it, paying attention to both vocabulary and punctuation. 

Dictionaries, thesauruses and laptops are frequently integrated into writing lessons. Children are able to use laptops independently to research topics and draw upon information from non-fiction to include in their own writing. Children often have the opportunity to present their end of unit work in typed form or written form. Many classes use the Book Creator app at least once a year, allowing children to publish their writing online.
 

As we are a mixed-age school, English lessons are taught in mixed-ability classes (Years 3 and 4 together, and Years 5 and 6 together). For the majority of children, they are taught English by their class teacher. 

For those children who need additional support, English is taught in smaller tailored groups, enabling them to access lessons at a level that meets their needs. These tailored groups integrate reading, writing, spelling and punctuation and really work to build children’s confidence and love of English.

We ensure prior learning is recapped and prior knowledge is built upon. Our aim is to help children become articulate speakers and fluent communicators. We encourage children to write for different purposes and adapt their writing, speaking and register depending on who their audience is.

When planning writing units, we refer to the Cornerstones Curriculum to ensure writing is cross-curricular and, when appropriate, linked to our creative curriculum. Some English units are inspired by Literacy Shed units and motivate children through the use of good quality texts or film units. Occasionally, and where appropriate, The Write Stuff units are followed and these are adapted to ensure children continue to be engaged in English lessons. We have experimented with different approaches to writing and have found a mixture of different approaches suits our children best as it keeps them engaged and motivated in English lessons.

Children at Broomhill take pride in their English work and often enjoy sharing it aloud during English lessons. In school, the use of English working walls is encouraged to help children build upon prior learning when writing independently.

English progression documents are available and reference the National Curriculum appendix for reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary and punctuation.  (Please see attachments below)

As a school, we are currently developing an Oracy Framework, which will underpin not only English lessons but all areas of our curriculum (School Priority Plan 2025–2026).

Support and Inclusion

Children with SEND are supported in English lessons in the following ways: small group work with an adult; one to one work with an adult; differentiated work set for children; key vocabulary is explained and highlighted to children; new words are added to working walls; word mats are used to support learning; pencil grips are given; enlarged copies of handouts are given to those who need this; multisensory approaches are used as much as possible; visual displays (working walls/ smartboards) are used; actions are used to support learning; shared and modelling writing;  tailored support for reading- group reading or one to one reading with an adult or                                                                                     differentiated reading tasks are given to children.

The bottom 20 % of lower and upper school children are taught English in a tailored  group, which is supported by additional adults. Children in these two groups work at a pace that is suitable to their needs and use the principles of precision teaching to recap and consolidate basic skills in reading, writing and spellings.

Implementation of IT

IT is currently used in many English lessons and has been integrated into the English curriculum since having laptops in school this year (2021-2022). Children confidently use the Internet to research and make notes, pulling facts from non-fiction sources of information.  Children are able to watch videos with confidence and are able to make notes from the research that they find. Children use the online dictionary app and thesaurus app to improve their vocabulary and word choices on a very regular basis. In addition, children have had experience using the Book Creator app where many have written stories and presented these using the platform. Many children have also enjoyed using Book Creator to present their non-chronological reports. In many lessons, children who struggle with the physical act of writing, use computers to record their work. Microsoft Word is used confidently by children as is Microsoft PowerPoint. As well as using computers to facilitate learning, the websites LBQ is used to enhance learning. LBQ is used in regular reading sessions and grammar sessions, where children are given sets of questions to complete and teachers can see who has and has not understood concepts. Upon seeing children be flagged up as not understanding the concept teachers are then able to give children one-to-one support.

Impact of our writing curriculum:

At Broomhill, we have a two-fold approach to measuring the impact of our Broomhill curriculum. Impact through monitoring and evaluation by Subject Leaders, thereby developing strategic thinking and leadership; and direct impact of children’s social development, attainment and progress. We use rigorous triangulated monitoring throughout the year to gauge the impact of our Broomhill curriculum allowing us to monitor the impact of the English curriculum. This incorporates reviewing learning, evaluating child voice, providing individual feedback to move practice forward, celebrating positives and highlighting areas of development that through CPD and coaching and mentoring are improved. The impact of our English curriculum will not only be measured by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally:

• End of KS2 percentage of children working towards or at the expected standard and at the higher standard in reading, writing and maths.

But, will in fact be measured by how effectively it helps our pupils develop into well rounded individuals who embody our values and carry with them the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them adaptable lifelong learners, confident communicators and valuable future citizens.

In addition, we measure our impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes;
• Termly assessment Cornerstones Assessments (Reading and SPAG) which is a suite of termly standardised tests which enable our school to track progress, identify gaps in children’s understanding and plan specific additional activities to narrow gaps in understanding;
• Half-termly assessments in writing using the agreed TAFs from Nottinghamshire County Council  (moderated writing) to identify gaps in children’s understanding and plan specific additional activities to narrow gaps in understanding;
• Pupil discussions about their own learning.
• Once reading, writing and grammar assessments have taken place  teachers update children’s objective pages on insite- our internal assessment tracking system. Teachers assess the outcomes of children by  assessing them against objectives from the National Curriculum.
• When reading and grammar assessments have been completed, teachers complete a question level analysis, which aims to identify gaps in children’s learning. These are then catered for in the next sequence of teaching and / or intervention time.
• LQB has also been used across school to help children meet gaps in their learning and to extend greater depth learners.

Monitoring methods show that our children enjoy writing and take pride with their work. Work in books is presented neatly and shows good progression from Lower Key Stage 2 to Upper Key Stage 2. Results of rigorous assessment and monitoring show that our writing and SPAG data at the end of KS2 has increased over the past 4 years.

Writing Overview

For an example of our writing overview, please see the attachments below.

Enrichment/Extra Opportunities

Pleasure for writing is actively promoted at Broomhill in the following ways:

• Every year, we enter the BBC 500 words writing competition
• We collaborate with The Young Writers Company and host competitions with them annually
• We host our own Broomhill writing competitions
• Weekly creative homework as a writing task
• Examples of writing are shared on our writing at Broomhill display
• Good examples of work are shared in Friday celebration assemblies

Celebrating Success: 

We have had many children’s work published in books- meaning we have some child authors! Lots of children have had their mini sagas and poems published when we participated in writing competitions with The Young Writers Company.

Some of our children have been successful in making it through to the second young of the 500 word competition (2023).