We use the books above as a basis for our core writing activities in our English unit of work. Across the year we teach the children different genres of writing, from narrative (story writing) to persuasive texts and non fiction reports. Our aim is to provide a high quality range of texts and genres for the children to enjoy and learn from as they move throughout the school. 

English Intent

At Furze Infant School we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion.  The National Curriculum for English is followed. English programmes of study: key stages 1 and 2 (publishing.service.gov.uk) We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and use discussion to communicate and further their learning.

Please click on the Phonics/ Reading tab for more information about our reading intent.

At Furze Infant School, writing is a crucial part of our curriculum. All children are provided with varied opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the whole curriculum. Storytelling and purpose for writing is key to our writing programme. It is our intention to have children skillfully taught to think like a writer and to use tools that will create an effect on the reader. We teach writing through the Talk for Writing strategy which stresses the importance of establishing good oral skills prior to writing. We intend for all teachers to play a vital role in the development of pupils’ spoken language through modelling and encouraging good verbal skills, such as speaking in full sentences, which will support pupil progress in writing. Grammar, spelling and handwriting are woven through writing models as well as being taught discreetly, and within phonics sessions. We understand how reading and writing are interlinked and have invested in high quality texts to broaden the vocabulary of our pupils, which they can begin to embed in their writing.

To support the teaching of new and adventurous vocabulary, all year groups have access to and make full use of the books that are in Pie Corbett’s Reading Spine. This ensures that all children are regularly read to in class and high quality texts are used for whole class and guided reading. There is an expectation that grammar will be modelled and used correctly by all teachers.

Talk for Writing

The Talk for Writing approach was develop by Pie Corbett, an educational writer and poet.  He is well known for promoting creativity in the classroom and has experience as a teacher, head teacher and OFSTED inspector.  He regularly lectures on education around the world and the UK government consult with him as an educational advisor. 

Talk for Writing is powerful because it enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally before reading and analysing it and then writing their own version.  It build on three stages of teaching:

1) Imitation - the children learn a text and the language they need

2) Innovation - the children adapt the model text with ideas of their own

3) Invention - the children create their own text using the language and skills that the model taught them.

 How effective is TFW (Talk for Writing)? See data and research here- https://www.talk4writing.com/does-talk-for-writing-work/