At Carlton Primary Academy, there is a strong, passionate vision for the curriculum, which is centred upon our mission statement: together we can achieve anything.

Intent

At Carlton Primary Academy, there is a strong, passionate vision for the curriculum, which clearly supports our mission statement: together we can achieve anything. The writing curriculum is focused upon creating a culture where all children fulfil their writing potential from a personal, academic and social aspect. Writing enables our pupils to develop intrinsic human qualities such as creativity, expression, identity, imagination, confidence and many more. Further, our curriculum allows all children to progress and exceed in writing throughout every lesson, writing cycle, half-term, term, and academic year. It is evident that our writing curriculum breaks down language barriers, cultural prejudices and societal differences, and as staff, we focus on promoting communication – particularly speaking and listening – as the key to our pupils’ success. Our values (community, respect, excellence and pride) are at the heart of our writing curriculum as they are meticulously planned into each cycle, so our pupils are prepared for life outside of Carlton Primary Academy.

The aims of our curriculum are strong and the aims of the relevant National Curriculum area are embedded within them, as well as being underpinned by precise, current, robust research, which is embedded throughout all aspects of each writing cycle. It is evident throughout Carlton Primary Academy that staff of all levels and relevant governors are aware of the curriculum rationale and aims, which align with the National Curriculum (English Programme of Study).

Carlton Primary Academy has a precise rationale regarding how the curriculum is designed in response to the needs of the pupils in our setting, directly responding to starting points, recent trends and common barriers to learning relating to context. At our school, we have a high proportion of children with Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) and/or Pupil Premium (PP), however, our curriculum is highly ambitious and designed precisely to give all pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. In order to do this effectively, staff work collaboratively to ensure the curriculum is adaptable, which enables all pupils to access content and make progress.

As Carlton Primary Academy is made up of number mixed year group classes, the writing curriculum is precisely sequenced bridging the gap between the EYFS and KS1 curriculum, so that component skills and knowledge are incrementally progressed across year groups. Ahead of composite performances at key points of the curriculum, content curriculum is precisely planned – including language acquisition, which is embedded within a deliberate, explicit and systematic framework. Finally, in order to nurture, develop and stretch our children’s talents and interests, our writing curriculum is the vehicle to wider opportunities.

Implementation

At Carlton, we follow a clear writing cycle consisting of progressive steps in order to produce excellent pieces of writing:

• Hook - engaging the children into the new cycle
• Investigate - our pupils investigate language, structural and presentational features in a text based on the genre, audience and purpose
• Investigate and Practice - children delve into a specific skill and apply it to another context to check their understanding
• Draft - our pupils produce their first drafts with content they have learnt through their enquiry lessons, as well as including a range of spelling, punctuation and grammar taught at their age-related expectations
• Revise and Edit - children are provided with the opportunity to revise previously-taught skills and edit their writing
• Produce - pupils produce their edited piece of writing ready to share with their audience

What does the writing process look like at Carlton?

Writing Working Walls:

Vocabulary Working Walls:

Example of a vocabulary wall (left) and example of application in planning stage (right).

Impact

Our pupils are at the centre of everything we implement at Carlton, therefore the impact of our teaching on their writing is of utmost importance.

What do our young authors have to say?

"I love writing about superheroes."                  "I like writing my name."

Our children, in EYFS, are encouraged to apply the skills they have been taught independently through meticulously-planned provision. Above, you can see two children who have applied their phonetical understanding to their writing in the home corner. 

Key Stage One

What do our KS1 children have to say about writing?

"My teacher shows us what to do at the front of the classroom," says William.

Harvey said, "The Flashback Four has stuff we have already learnt to help us remember."

Key Stage Two

We have been extremely lucky to have built an excellent rapport with people in our community, particularly Royston Library: they have displayed our pupils' work on numerous occasions and organised visits for them to see their work.

Poetry (22/23)

Based on Stella by Starlight, our UKS2 pupils have written from the perspective of Stella about her first encounter with the KKK. It is important to us, at Carlton Primary Academy, to challenge societal injustice through the magic of words. 

Scan the QR code to visit our class Twitter page, where you can hear some of our amazing poems aloud.

What do our KS2 pupils say about writing?

Noah begins, "Our classroom is really good because it’s split into sections. It feels like it is really clear for us to use."

"I agree with Noah because when we move onto a different subject, we know where to look as it’s so clear. Also, a good part about our classroom is the sentence stem board. This helps us be more formal and respectful when speaking out loud," Theo agreed.

Xander added, "We have our vocab wall in the middle of reading and writing walls because they’re the subjects we use it the most."

"You can use vocabulary from the wall for your writing. When you’re stuck on something in writing, you can look at the wall to make it better," Heather suggested.