At Brook Field, we believe that spoken and written language are a fundamental part of children’s learning. It is a key factor in the development of all curriculum areas and, as such, will have a significant contribution to all learning situations.  Our priority is to create fluent readers, writers, and speakers with all the skills and knowledge they need to be confidently literate in life. Through a cross-curricular approach to teaching, we ensure that English is multi-sensory and highly engaging, incorporating oracy, drama, real-life contexts, and high-quality literature.

In writing, we aim to create an environment that will promote both reading and writing. To ensure that all pupils learn to be confident writers, we encourage children to write creatively whilst teaching key writing skills explicitly and systematically.  Teachers aim to provide a wide range of writing experiences that will enable children to feel enthused, excited, and motivated to write. 

We do this in the following ways:

• Audience and purpose – always provide a good reason to write. Give the children a clear idea of who they are writing to and what it is for.
• Different kinds of writing – expose children to writing in all shapes and forms, from signs, labels and captions to comic strips, recipes, reports, and leaflets as well as stories and writing for information or persuasion.
• First-hand experiences - help generate vocabulary and ideas. This can be trips out, visitors, a themed day, a drama or sensory experience, exciting objects. All these experiences can create atmosphere, mood or excitement that can help fire the children’s imaginations.
• Cross curricular opportunities – applying the styles, techniques and conventions used within English to all other areas of the curriculum such as Science, History, Geography, R.E., French and PSHE. This develops versatility and allows the children to exercise their literary skills within a variety of challenging settings.
• Talk for writing and oracy opportunities –allowing the children to voice their ideas, thoughts, and opinions in preparation for writing. This includes drama, role play and opportunities for paired and group discussion.