To meet the National Curriculum Objectives, we base our literacy units on high quality, age-appropriate texts so that children have considerable exposure to the text type as well as having opportunities to magpie words and phrases while they write. The National Curriculum states that spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing and, with oracy being such a high priority for children at Thurgoland Primary School, we provide discussion opportunities into every lesson in all year groups. EYFS and KS1 begin to develop their oracy and writing through Talk through Stories which allow our pupils to extend and deepen their vocabulary through carefully selected texts so that they can understand the books they will soon be able to read for themselves. In KS2, pupils continue this learning journey through high-quality texts which are shared and discussed in daily comprehension lessons.

Writing at Thurgoland is taught explicitly in daily literacy lessons and skills learnt are regularly reinforced across the curriculum. Using a combination of novels, film, poetry and relevant real life events, learning is fun, meaningful and memorable for all pupils.

Having studied different texts, pupils immerse themselves in the language and structure of these to create their own toolkit – an aid to writing. This ensures that language patterns, punctuation and key phrases are internalised by the children so that they become confident and competent writers. Repeated practice of writing genres throughout their primary years ensures that pupils leave our school capable of writing for different audiences and purposes.

Spelling is taught daily outside of literacy lessons and children understand the importance of learning spellings in a memorable and interesting way. A range of strategies throughout the week support pupils in becoming competent lifelong spellers. Accurate spelling is expected in all writing across the curriculum and children are taught and given time to edit their spellings and recognise their own errors. Pupils are supported through key vocabulary lists, modelling and encouraged to use a dictionary and thesaurus during any writing process.

The teaching of grammar and Standard English is an integral part of every writing lesson and across the whole curriculum. Using the National Curriculum, these skills are taught progressively and systematically throughout the school and are linked to genres studied where possible.

We, at Thurgoland Primary, believe that all children are authors and therefore teachers prioritise and model the process of writing within every literacy unit so that children understand the thought process behind writing. Teachers think out loud, edit and demonstrate how and why they have structured their writing in the way that they have. Pupils are then given many opportunities to participate in a shared write, where everybody contributes to the writing outcome before this is scaffolded further into paired, supported and finally independent writing.

Finally, we ensure that every child is able to self-assess, review and edit their own work. This process is modelled regularly by staff and children are expected to make well-thought out changes to their writing from Year 1 through to Year 6. By the end of their primary school journey, children at Thurgoland will transition to secondary school with the ability and confidence to draft, edit and produce final pieces which reflect their skills, knowledge and creativity.