At Field Court Junior Academy we believe that language and literacy is fundamental to the overall development of the child and their access to the curriculum in all its aspects. The abilities to read and write are a passion and a priority throughout the whole school in all learning. We believe that writing should be a developmental process both at a functional and an imaginative level. This is why we live and breathe the fact that our children are all stars in the making. The compositional and transcriptional skills are taught alongside the creative aspects. Immersion in reading, talk and preparation for writing is essential to the writing development process.

Upon completing KS2, we aim for all children to be able to:

• have fluent and legible handwriting;
• understand the sound and spelling system and use this to spell accurately;
• have an interest in words and their meaning and a growing vocabulary;
• write clearly, accurately in coherently, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences;
• develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness;
• use suitable technical vocabulary through which to understand and discuss their reading and writing;
• articulate their thoughts verbally, being able to listen and understand the views of others;
• plan, draft, edit and evaluate independently.

As the National Curriculum, 2014, states:
All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils, therefore, who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised.

 Implementation of Writing

• Children learn how to write through a consistent approach across the school using a variety of teaching and feedback that immediately impacts on learning and outcomes.

1. Modelled writing that is written by the teacher as the expert writer. 
2. Shared Writing takes modelled writing one-step further and encourages the pupils to have an involvement in the thinking process and written outcome. 
3. Guided Writing targets children at their point of writing. Guided writing takes place in small groups with a teaching focus using targets and writing already modelled. 
4. Independent writing.  Provides the opportunity to consolidate learning and implement new features of writing independently.
5. Writing environment. The school environment celebrates quality writing through displays of work in both handwritten and typed form. All classrooms have dictionaries and thesauruses of the highest level so pupils can constantly expand their spelling and vocabulary. Our working walls provide immediate and relevant guidance for each writing text-type that we cover.
6. Writing Week.  This is a whole school, themed writing stimulus that provides the children the opportunity to demonstrate their writing skills for a sustained period of time. It is completely unique to FCJA. It takes place once per term and provides a standalone outcome with the ability to be moderated across the school.

Speaking and listening / spoken language

We believe that speaking and listening skills are fundamental to children’s development and that confidence in this area is essential to be successful in all areas of literacy and across the wider curriculum. The four strands to speaking and listening are:

1. speaking;
2. listening and responding;
3. group discussion and interaction
4. drama.

These oral skills are directly taught, modelled and sensitively encouraged in whole class and small group settings. Opportunities across the whole curriculum are planned for and developed; these include Black History Month writing, Writing Weeks, studying Shakespeare, yearly class assemblies, annual school productions, our annual Arts Performance Evening, class debates, children voicing opinions during RE, PSHE, Wellbeing, daily Assembly and with the School Council, as well as reading their own work and both giving and receiving feedback.