At St Peter’s, we believe learning to write is one of the most important things that a child at primary school will learn. Not only do children use their writing in almost all other subjects of the curriculum but good writing also gives children a voice to share their ideas, opinions and imagination with the world. We use a variety of learning and teaching styles in our daily Literacy lessons in order to meet the needs of all our pupils.

At St Peter’s, we support children to become confident writers by providing exciting materials and opportunities. Our aim is for children to develop the stamina and skills to write at length, with accurate spelling and punctuation and a fluent and legible, handwriting style. They are taught the correct use of grammar at each stage. Children are given the opportunities to write in a variety of genres, covering the full range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry and are taught to edit and redraft their writing for a range of audiences.

We teach literacy daily as a discrete subject from Year 1 to Year 6, following the National Curriculum, with opportunities for Literacy in the Foundation Stage being incorporated into the child’s day according to the principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Through the Power of Reading, we use high quality texts and creative teaching approaches to engage and motivate children in their literacy learning, to support children in deepening their understanding of texts and provide them with a meaningful context for writing

Through our use of high-quality texts and models of writing, we aim to:

• inspire children to develop a variety of writing styles
• promote enjoyment of writing
• encourage children to make careful word choices
• use writing as a means of effectively communicating their feelings, ideas and opinions
• understand that all writing has a specific purpose and audience

Texts may be fiction or non-fiction books, picture books or chapter books, poetry or newspaper articles, and these will be the basis for learning and writing content, and may be adapted to suit the particular needs of the class.

English lessons will use a range of creative approaches to support the pupil’s understanding and exploration of the text, such as drama, hot-seating, story maps, speaking and listening tasks, visits to settings, illustration, debates or research.

In addition to these creative approaches, there is consistent teaching of the structure and features of different text types with a link to the grammar and punctuation needed to making their independent writing successful. This will involve looking at good examples of the text type, identifying the key features, creating toolkits for writing, teacher modelling and time to draft, edit and publish where appropriate.

Children’s command of vocabulary is key to their learning and progress across the whole curriculum. Teachers will therefore develop vocabulary actively, building systematically on children’s current knowledge. We believe it is particularly important to introduce children to subject specific language, such as accurate mathematical and scientific vocabulary. We recognise using ICT can provide children with additional learning hours and support them in practising and consolidating their learning from school. 

Cross curricular literacy

English is both a subject in its own right and a medium for teaching. For children, understanding language will provide access to the whole curriculum.  We believe that fluency in the English language is an essential foundation for success in all subjects and our aim is ensure that all children can apply, practise and consolidate language and literacy skills in other subjects in a purposeful way.