English

Appreciating the spoken and the written word

Focus

Our focus in English is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping all pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. Our intent is that a high-quality education will inspire children to become creative and critical thinkers. We believe that it is the right of every child to become a competent and confident user of the English language; able to live, work and succeed in the literate world. Children will be able to communicate fluently and confidently, using a wide vocabulary accurately and effectively. They will be able to critique a range of fiction and non-fiction texts, appreciating a rich and varied literary heritage. Children will be inspired to become imaginative writers who can write coherently with a high level of accuracy in spelling, punctuation and grammar; children will be able to adapt their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. English provides the fundamental building blocks for students to succeed in all subjects; a high level of literacy provides the vehicle needed to unpick key concepts across the curriculum. This, alongside carefully selected texts appropriate to our contexts, develops the cultural capital needed to succeed in life. Crucially, we aim to foster a love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

Aims

Our aims, as set out in the EYFS framework and the National Curriculum, are to teach children to

read easily, fluently and with good understanding
develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

We have been working in teams across the Futura Learning Partnership to create a shared curriculum for all schools to use across a range of subjects. The curriculum for English can be found within this document here.

Please see each of the following sections for more information: phonics, reading, writing and assessment

Phonics

In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One all children have daily phonics lessons in class. Our EYFS and KS1 children undertake phonics learning through Read, Write Inc.

Please see more information here.

All Y1 pupils are tested in June to establish their phonic knowledge and the results are reported to parents. Extra support is given to any child who has not reached the expected standard and they retake the test in Year Two.

Reading

For the teaching of reading from Foundation stage into Key Stage One and Lower Key Stage Two we have a reading scheme that begins with closely matched phonic books linked to our Read Write Inc scheme. From there, once children are fluent readers, they continue to work through a progression of books from National Bookbands up to Level 16 taken from a variety of publishers including Oxford University Press, PM and Walker.

On reaching the end of this scheme, children are moved on to independent readers and the Accelerated Reader scheme. This scheme carefully tracks and monitors children’s reading progress whilst allowing them the freedom to choose books for pleasure and enjoyment. The books available include carefully selected texts that encourage a breadth of reading experiences For more information on the Acclerated Reader scheme please see the resources here and here. For children who require support with fluency and accuracy additional titles with high interest, lower reading ages are available, such as Barrington Stoke Books.

Children that have reached the expected standard in phonics will move to daily VIPERS reading lessons. These lessons develop the children’s comprehension skills through questioning and class discussion. We use a range of texts to ensure the children are reading a variety of fiction and non fiction. VIPERS lessons also encourage children to continue to improve their fluency, particularly when reading aloud.

The Importance of Daily Reading

We hold the ‘simple view of reading’ which means we focus on developing readers who read with fluency and accuracy and comprehend the texts they read and are read to them. Please see our reading section here for useful links for children and parents and take a look at Miss Davis’ Inspire Reading presentation here. There are games, book lists, tips for parents and more…

We develop childrens’ understanding of what they read through:

daily opportunities to listen and discuss texts read to them.
By using texts that are linked to children’s interest or the topics they are studying.

Writing

We teach a progressive set of specific written skills, in line with the outcomes from the Early Learning Goals in EYFS and the Age Related Expectations from the National Curriculum for Years 1 – 6, through a range of genres of writing.

We do this:

Through the progressive teaching of handwriting, guided by the RWI scheme in KS1 and Teach Handwriting in KS2.
By studying units of fiction, non- fiction and poetry writing and unpicking features of different text types through modelled examples.
By using high quality, culturally diverse texts to focus our writing on.
Through regular opportunities for independent writing with clear, focussed feedback for individuals.

In Reception, children are given a variety of opportunities to write within their play and, when they are ready, guided during teacher-directed tasks. Throughout the school writing is supported and developed through a range of cross curricular subjects as well as in English lessons.

To encourage the children to take ownership of their learning, teachers involve them in improvement of their written work. This includes giving them time to revise and edit their work considering targets by referring to small manageable ones set by themselves and the teacher for each piece of extended written work.

Spelling

We teach spelling through the application of phonic knowledge linked to the phases and then in line with English Appendix 1 from the National Curriculum.

This is achieved through specific teaching of grapheme- phoneme correspondence in Sets 1-3 in EYFS and KS1. The focus on correspondence continues in KS2, where children are taught a wider range of graphemes for familiar and less-familair phonemes. This includes irregular and common exception words for each year group.

Children in EYFS are regularly assessed for their application of their phonic knowledge and children in Year 1-6 undertake weekly spelling tests linked to the taught patterns.

For those children who find spelling challenging, lists are adapted in line with their current need and interventions such as Nessy, Read, Write Inc or Precision Teaching may be used to support their progression.

Assessing reading and writing

At Saltford teachers are gathering information about children’s reading and writing on a daily basis from a number of activities. This helps us ensure lesson planning meets the needs of individuals. In EYFS ongoing, daily assessment is recorded in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile and in Y1- Y6 teachers assess and record whether a child is ‘on track’ to meet end of year expectations in reading and writing three times a year. Any child who is not making the expected progress is discussed and strategies are put in place to support them. This could be in the form of 1:1 teaching, small group activities or being heard read on a more regular basis. Statutory testing of reading and writing also takes place at the end of Y2 and Y6 and testing of Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar at the end of Y6.