English
Writing
At Cheam Common Infants, our goal is to inspire and empower pupils to become enthusiastic and purposeful writers. Beginning in the Foundation Stage, we nurture the development of pre-writing skills and encourage the exploration of mark-making as a means of expression and communication. As the pupils progress, we guide them in mastering letter formation and understanding the structure of stories.
Employing proven strategies, including Talk for Writing and Tales Toolkit, we use stories and rhymes to systematically foster the early language development of our pupils. These frameworks provide invaluable support for language acquisition and writing skills. As they transition into Key Stage One, our pupils evolve into adept authors, building upon the solid foundations laid in their earlier years.
At each stage of their learning journey, from EYFS to Year 2, pupils are introduced to writing skills and grammar concepts tailored to their year group. Recognising the importance that rhythm and rhyme have in the development of pupils’s early literacy skills, all pupils in the school have opportunities to explore, learn and perform poems on a weekly basis. Carefully selected texts, from the Power of Reading programme, serve as rich language models, enabling pupils to grasp the mechanics of writing and its impact on the reader. They engage in diverse writing purposes, including 'to Entertain,' 'to Inform,' 'to Persuade,' and 'to Discuss,' exploring an array of text types such as recounts, explanations, and narratives.
Teachers employ a variety of techniques, including drama, role-play, shared writing, and textual analysis, to deepen pupils's understanding of different text types and language features. While hearing written words is paramount, we also emphasize the importance of comprehending meaning conveyed through other mediums such as film, illustration, digital texts, and performance. By embracing these multiple forms of expression, we empower our pupils to become versatile communicators.
Cheam Common Infants LEO Writing Progression
Grammar, Spelling & Punctuation (GPS)
The teaching of Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GPS) is woven within both our writing curriculum and our RWInc lessons. The grammar content for each year group is taught in the context of our writing lessons, in order to provide opportunities for pupils to apply their skills in a purposeful way. From Reception to Year 2, as part of their phonics sessions, pupils take part in Get Writing and have books closely matched to their level. In these sessions, pupils are taught to hold a sentence focusing on forming letters correctly, spelling words correctly, using punctuation and developing words into sentences. Sentences are repeated using My Turn Your Turn (MTYT) and pupils are reminded of how to sit and hold their pencil. Actions are used to help pupils punctuate their sentences correctly with capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. pupils are taught grammar explicitly using examples from the story books. Different word classes are taught such as nouns, adjectives and verbs. Check boxes throughout the books prompt pupils to proofread and review their writing, helping them to make sustained progress.
During Year 2, pupils are taught using RWI Comprehension. RWI Comprehension as well as teaching reading, also explicitly teaches spelling, punctuation and grammar. pupils continue to hold a sentence where they develop their letter formation, spelling and punctuation. pupils are taught to spell common words they have been reading. They learn how to spell words containing high frequency graphemes (green words). Each module teaches pupils to spell a focus sound e.g. ee. pupils use dots and dashes to match the speech sounds to graphemes in each word. pupils practice spelling red words in each module. Red words are common words that contain a tricky spelling. In grammar lessons, pupils are explicitly taught: noun phrases, verbs in the past and present tense, adverbs, punctuation, conjunctions and sentence types
Handwriting
At Cheam Common Infants , our handwriting journey starts with the first steps into mark making in EYFS. As pupils continue their journey through EYFS and KS1, they will use the Read, Write Inc approach to handwriting to become fluent with the sizing of their letters and letter formation. As pupils move into Year 2 and further into KS2, they begin to join their letters focusing on a ‘Join of the Week’ between certain letters and certain letter joins. The two join types that the pupils learn are…
The washing line - straight across i.e from an o, w, r, u
The arm join - a diagonal join upwards i.e from an a, d, l
