At Trosnant, we are committed to promoting high standards of English by developing pupils’ abilities within an integrated programme of Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing.

We believe that it is important that learners make links with learning and the Federation’s drivers. As part of the short-term planning process, we include an LO (Learning Opportunity) and Steps to Success; in order to explain why knowledge, concepts and skills are being taught and how they can be applied to everyday life and to ensure that subjects are explicit to each learner.

A Trosnant writer has:               

• The ability to write fluently and with interesting detail on a number of topics throughout the curriculum. 
• Develop a vivid imagination, which makes readers engage with and enjoy their writing. 
• A highly developed vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description. 
• Well-organised and structured writing, which includes a variety of sentence structures. 
• Excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented and punctuated, spelled correctly and neat. 
• A love of writing and an appreciation of its purpose.                                                                  
• Be able to identify areas to edit and improve my writing with consideration for the effect on the reader.     
• Be able to write for a range of purposes in different forms. 
•  Using phonetical knowledge as well as other resources available to become independent writers.          

Writing at Trosnant

Our English Curriculum is taught daily across the school. We use an enriched, personalised and blended approach adapted from the ‘Talk for Writing’ and ‘Get it Write’ programmes. Each unit has a rich text driver that focuses on the National Curriculum Reading, Writing, Grammar and Speaking and Listening objectives for each year group.

Each English learning journey includes:

• Stimulate and Generate
• Capture, Sift and Sort
• Create, Refine and Evaluate

Handwriting at Trosnant

In Early Years, children are encouraged to write using an appropriate posture and pencil grip. Activities such as hand gym are used to encourage the fine motor skills needed to form letters correctly. As the children transition into Year 1, handwriting lessons are taught by the class teacher and by Year 2 children are encouraged to form their letters cursively through the Letter-join scheme in which we follow.

Letter-join font is displayed in each classroom and modelled by the adults.

Pen licenses are awarded in Key Stage Two when the children can consistently achieve the following:

• • • You form all your letters and digits correctly 
    • You join your writing in all your work with clear lead ins and outs 
    • Your writing is neat and consistent in size with clear ascenders and descenders 
    • You can write neatly and fluently on the line or using a line guide 
    • You leave appropriate spaces between your words 

This is awarded to individuals at the teachers’ discretion and judgement.

Speaking and Listening at Trosnant

Speaking and Listening is an integral part of our English Curriculum and is embedded in each phase of the teaching process, as well as across all areas of the curriculum. Children develop the vocabulary necessary to talk about their writing and appreciate the authorial choices made within the writing they are reading, understanding different ways in which sentences can be structured to achieve a desired impact, and are able to make effective choices when composing their own writing based upon this learning. During a learning journey each year group has at least one ‘PENS DOWN!’ lesson. This lesson is solely used to develop the children’s speaking and listening skills, through the use of drama.