Writing

At Aldbury, teachers demonstrate writing of all genres through shared and modelled writing activities. Writing skills are further developed in group guided writing sessions. Learners practise writing through independent writing tasks and are given opportunities to plan, draft, revise and edit their own, as well as their peers’ writing using purple polishing pens. Learners use their writing skills to communicate across the curriculum. 

Our English Curriculum

At Aldbury, our English curriculum is guided by Literacy Tree, a comprehensive and thematic approach to primary English that places children's literature at its heart. How It Works Literacy Tree is an award-winning platform that immerses children in a rich literary world, fostering strong engagement and providing meaningful contexts for learning primary English. Through this Teach Through a Text approach, children become critical readers and develop an understanding of audience and purpose in writing, as they encounter a wide range of significant authors and diverse texts, including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

As a whole-school approach, Literacy Tree ensures that children explore at least 100 literary texts and experience the works of over 75 unique and significant authors throughout their time at our school. This curriculum provides complete coverage of all National Curriculum expectations for writing composition, reading comprehension, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary, as well as spelling. Each plan leads to purposeful application within a variety of written outcomes.

SPAG [Spelling, grammar and punctuation] 

Punctuation is taught discreetly and as part of English lessons in all classes. This covers the correct and incorrect usage as well as offering learners the opportunity to use this learning at text level during writing sessions. Learners’ will also link this knowledge to reading aloud and will adapt their pace or intonation accordingly when they encounter punctuation devices in a text. 

Grammar is a key focus in conversational English, with teachers picking up on errors and correcting pupils when needed. There are opportunities for public speaking in each class whilst grammar is also a focus in independent writing tasks. All learners are fully included in all aspects of SPAG teaching and are appropriately supported and challenged by teachers and support staff.