English
NURTURING A CREATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The school Statement of Intent forms the basis of all that we do in our literacy lessons. We learn together and we are rooted in God in all that we read and write. Reading forms a large part of a child’s day and will be used across the curriculum. Children are also given many opportunities to apply their writing skills in cross curricular contexts.
At Barton St Lawrence, we aim:
• for children to become enthusiastic and motivated readers and writers
• to develop children’s confidence in reading a wide variety of genres and text types
• for children to have the skills to decode words in order to be able to read fluently with understanding of what they have read.
• to encourage a love of literature and an enjoyment of reading for pleasure
• to use reading to provoke thought within children
• to give children a purpose, context and audience for their writing
• to enable children to master the technique of constructing a well planned and exciting piece of writing
We have been awarded an 'Innovative Practice' Award for our teaching of Grammar. We are very proud that the school has achieved this award.
We have a whole-school approach to the teaching of spelling, following Letters and Sounds as a guide. Further details can be found in the Spelling and Phonics section of the website. Please follow this link to our Overview of Literacy Provision for more information on curriculum coverage in reading, writing, spelling and grammar. Each Key Stage also has its own page with downloadable documents outlining the statutory requirements for those year groups.
Writing Progression
Reception
Early learning goal for Writing:
Write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others.
Sentence examples:
• Jack had magic beans. *(Phonetically plausible: majic, beens)
• Mum was sad.
Year 1
Grammar and punctuation:
Sentence
• How words can combine to make sentences
• Joining words and joining clauses using and
Punctuation
• Separation of words with spaces
• Introduction to capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks to
demarcate sentences
• Capital letters for names and for the personal pronoun I
Sentence examples:
• Jack went to the market.
• Mum was sad and she threw the beans.
• He saw a giant and a pot of gold.
• Jack took the hen and the harp.
Year 2
Grammar and punctuation:
Sentence
• Subordination (using when, if, that, because) and co-ordination (using or, and, but)
• Expanded noun phrases for description and specification
• How the grammatical patterns in a sentence indicate its function as a statement,
question, exclamation or command
Punctuation
• Use of capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks to
demarcate sentences
• Commas to separate items in a list
• Apostrophes to mark where letters are missing in spelling and to mark singular
possession in nouns
Sentence examples:
• Jack’s mother told him to sell the cow because they needed money.
• Jack got magic beans from an old man but his mum was angry.
• Jack saw an enormous, sleeping giant.
• The beans grew into a big beanstalk.
• Why did Jack climb the beanstalk?
• What a beautiful castle!
• Climb the beanstalk.
Year 3
Grammar and punctuation:
Sentence
• Expressing time, place and cause using conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions
Punctuation
• Introduction to inverted commas to punctuate direct speech
Sentence examples:
• Jack climbed the beanstalk once his mother had gone to bed.
• Finally, Jack arrived at the castle on top of the clouds.
• Carefully, Jack climbed the beanstalk so that he could satisfy his curiosity.
Year 4
Grammar and punctuation:
Sentence
• Noun phrases expanded by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and
preposition phrases
• Fronted adverbials
Punctuation
• Use of inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech
• Apostrophes to mark plural possession
• Use of commas after fronted adverbials
Sentence examples:
• After saying farewell to his mother, Jack carefully climbed the gigantic beanstalk
until he reached the magnificent castle in the clouds.
• When he eventually reached the top of the gigantic beanstalk, Jack was exhausted.
Year 5
Grammar and punctuation:
Sentence
• Relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose, that, or an omitted
relative pronoun
• Indicating degrees of possibility using adverbs or modal verbs
Punctuation
• Brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis
• Use of commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity
Sentence examples:
• Through the small crack in the castle door, Jack could see the enormous giant who was
asleep in the kitchen.
• A magnificent castle, which had a huge front door, stood on top of the clouds.
• Tiptoeing past the sleeping giant, Jack wondered whether he could make it out of the
castle alive.
• The giant was certainly going to be angry when he noticed his harp was missing.
Year 6
Grammar and punctuation:
Sentence
• Use of the passive to affect the presentation of information in a sentence
• The difference between structures typical of informal speech and structures
appropriate for formal speech and writing or the use of subjunctive forms
Punctuation
• Use of the semi-colon, colon and dash to mark the boundary between independent
clauses
• Use of the colon to introduce a list and use of semi-colons within lists
• Punctuation of bullet points to list information
• How hyphens can be used to avoid ambiguity
Sentence examples:
• The enraged giant chased Jack down the gigantic beanstalk.
• Jack was chased down the gigantic beanstalk by the enraged giant.
Amazing Writing
Here are a few examples of amazing writing from across the school. We are so proud of the effort that has gone into these pieces of writing and the attention the children have shown to their presentation.
Reception class - dinosaur sentence by Alice "That's not my dinosaur. It's too spiky"
