At Mount Street Primary School we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and talk. We have a rigorous and well organised English curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and talk throughout all we do.

Oracy is key across all subjects. In English the use of talk and active listening is taught explicitly. Talk tasks, time to talk, sentence stems, talk partners are key to developing a confident communicator.

At Mount Street, all pupils are provided with access to a high-quality English curriculum that develops pupils’ phonics, love of reading, writing and discussion. This ensures that they have the speaking, listening, reading and writing skills for future success. We aim not only to prepare our children for the next stage of their education, but also to lay the foundations for successful lives after school and the jobs of tomorrow, all of which will require the use of their English skills. The curriculum enables pupils to express themselves creatively and imaginatively and to communicate with others effectively. Through exposure to a wide variety of genres, including fiction, poetry and non-fiction, all pupils will gain an understanding of how language works by looking at its patterns, structures, and origins.

Writing Intent | What and why do we teach what we teach?

At Mount Street, our writing curriculum follows the objectives of the National Curriculum. The aims of teaching writing, as outlined in the National Curriculum, are to ensure that all pupils:

• To deliver an engaging and exciting curriculum that helps develop a love of writing and inspires children
• Encourage children to be imaginative and to bring this to their writing through exposure and engaging high quality texts
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for writing
• to provide children with essential foundational skills in transcription (handwriting and spelling) , grammar, punctuation and composition
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• develop children into writers with an understanding of the writing process, including proof reading and editing to enhance their work.
• Create a culture where children love to write and take pride in the writing that they produce.
• support children to express their thoughts and ideas, clearly, coherently and creatively becoming confident communicators verbally and in writing
• Is rooted in oracy from Nursery up through the school

Implementation | How and when do we teach what we teach?

Children are introduced to mark making and writing skills from day 1. We recognise the importance of building up coordination, muscle strength, memory and so forth. This strong developmental foundation enables the children to build and layer their learning. As we move through the school lessons support the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing are carefully layered and supported:

• Systematic phonics taught consistently from reception (Nursery)

• EYFS environment ensures opportunities for mark making and the many stages before are layered and progressive

• Milestones documents applied to children and skills are supportive of a small step coherent journey from oracy, mark making, word and caption level to sentences.
• Sentence based strong foundations (WM, HM, SM and toolkits from year 1)
• Progressive sentence approach building skills to ensure foundation skills are embedded
• Mapped genre writing matrix across the school including purpose and audience. 
• Gradual release approach to teaching writing 
• High expectation of presentation and content
• Writing taught through high-quality texts mostly linked to topics
• Nelson Grammar taught progressively and sequentially throughout school (and applied)
• Spelling begins with gross and fine motor moving through Early years and KS1
• Statutory spellings learnt and practised in all year groups
• RWI spelling taught Y2-Y6 daily, focusing on spelling rules and patterns (alongside learning high level vocabulary)
• Personal best handwriting at the front of books and writing displayed around the schools
• Class reader for pleasure – high-quality text exposure
• Clear handwriting structure across school
• Use of bubble writing to develop consistency and support SEND learners

Impact | How do we assess the impact of what we teach via pupil outcomes?

• By engaging in and listening to high quality texts, children display enthusiasm for their English work and can discuss stimuli and models confidently.
• The impact of our writing curriculum goes beyond the results of teacher assessments and allows children to communicate their learning across the curriculum using both written and oracy skills.
• Children take pleasure and pride in writing, sharing their work with their peers, staff and parents.
• Children use vocabulary and grammar correctly in their spoken language and apply this to their written work.
• Children develop independence in writing and make accurate choices in their writing style throughout the year, building on their prior learning in subsequent year groups
• Our percentage of children who achieve the expected standard or higher in end of year, and end of key stage assessments in both writing and GPS is widely in-line with national data. Through targeted intervention, those who require additional support are scaffolded to enable them to make accelerated progress.
• Through RWI spelling and focus on statutory spellings, general spelling has improved in all daily and topic writing (book looks)
• Positive attitudes towards learning and enjoyment in reading, writing and spelling – evident from pupil conferencing and learning walks
• Phonics Screening checks show a general increase in results, with lates data being above national averages– 77% (2023)  - 67% (2024) – 75% (2025) - 89% (2026)

And what actually goes into this in Mount Street? Let’s look in more detail .

Phonics 

Prior to phonics we ensure that all children enjoy listening and speaking games spotting the sounds used to communicate. These sounds are explored in play , where we use rhyme, tone, mouth shapes and other developmental tools to immerse our children in linguistic features.

As we develop sound, rhythm, speech and all that entails, we move into the more formal phase of phonics education. Please see the link to our Phonics web page to explain why we use Read Write Inc to teach phonics and how we teach your child to read and write using the scheme. 

Spelling 

At Mount Street we follow the Read Write Inc spelling scheme which is delivered to year 2 to year 6. Prior to Year 2 children are taught to hear sounds, blend sounds and record spellings as they hear them. In conjunction with this the children are also taught Common exception words appropriate for their year group.