English Purpose of Study

English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others, and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised.

Source: National Curriculum, 2014

INTENT

At Wincanton Primary School, English sits at the heart of the curriculum.  We seek to ensure that children are supported to be enthusiastic, lifelong learners with a love of literacy. Acquiring the skills to speak, read and write with confidence, are the most important things that a child will learn: we encounter literacy every day of our lives as it is the framework of our communication. The ability to express ourselves effectively gives children a voice, and therefore opportunities to share their ideas with the world.

We teach English daily throughout the school and know that for children to become excellent writers they need be able to speak in clear sentences and read widely. It is our intention at Wincanton Primary School to immerse pupils in the wonders of quality texts and to instil a love for reading, a passion for discovery and a confidence to explore their imagination through our book-led writing curriculum. Our aim is to promote and instil a love for reading, writing and high-quality literature into pupils at all ages and ensure that every child becomes a reader, a writer and confident speaker by the time they leave our school. 

IMPLEMENTATION

Oracy skills are developed across the school through a variety of games, discussions, debates, performances and explicitly taught sessions; all of which develop children’s vocabulary and supports them in becoming confident communicators. The understanding of vocabulary is key to the wider understanding of texts and as such, we celebrate the discovery of ‘new’ words in our classrooms as we develop our working walls.

Our systematic synthetic phonics programme, Unlocking Letters and Sounds, is taught throughout EYFS and Key Stage One. Through whole class teaching, these daily sessions develop fluent word reading skills and provide good foundations in spelling. Regular assessments identify those children who are not keeping up with the pace of the scheme and daily interventions are used to ensure these children are supported to make the expected progress.

Spellings are taught explicitly throughout the school and build to support spelling patterns and rules with a clear progression that develops children’s strategies and understanding of language as they move through the school.

All children take part in daily reading sessions.  High-quality teaching of whole class reading, guided group work and comprehension lessons enable children to be confident readers. Classes share a daily read aloud and children read their own books with increased independence as they progress through the school. Teachers and teaching assistants listen to children read on a regular basis.

Our children are all encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live. This establishes an appreciation and love of reading which supports wellbeing as well as providing access to knowledge across the curriculum.

Children experience a broad and balanced diet of genres; there is a clear progression of reading and writing skills through each year and across each year group.  Each English unit is focused around a high-quality text. Shared and modelled writing supports children’s understanding of the necessary transcriptional and compositional skills, such as the relevant punctuation, handwriting and grammatical rules for the text type. In order to give a purpose and an audience for writing, children are given time to read, immerse, analyse, rehearse, plan, write, edit and redraft their work into published pieces that are celebrated.

IMPACT 

• Children are competent communicators and have a vast knowledge of vocabulary.
• All children make at least good or accelerated progress in their literacy development.
• Children have an awareness of a variety of authors and genres and are able to voice their love of reading.
• Our children are enthusiastic writers and produce quality extended writing.
• The school’s results for the Phonics Screening Check and end of Key Stage 1 & 2 English results compare favourably to that of the national data.
• Children’s literacy skills support them to access the wider curriculum and the next stage of their education. 

Phonics

We use Unlocking Letters and Sounds which was validated by the DfE in December 2021.

We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey.

Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. 

They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences.  Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2,3, and 4.

    For more information, please click on link below:

In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, they learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional Common Exception Words. By the end of Year 1 children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling. In Year 1 all children are screened using the national Phonics Screening Check.

In Year 2, phonics continues to be revisited to ensure mastery of the phonetic code and any child who does not meet age related expectations will continue to receive support to close identified gaps.

For further details please see the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression:

To ensure no child is left behind at any point in the progression, children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions. The lowest attaining 20% of pupils are closely monitored to ensure these interventions have an impact.

Supporting with Reading at home

All children should be reading at least 5x per week at home each week. 

Prior to getting a reading book, you should be practising all taught graphemes taught. These are sent home at the end of each unit taught in Phase 2 and Phase 3. You can also practise Oral Blending games; this is where you will sound something out such as p-i-g and your child blends those sounds together to say pig. You can make this fun with simple eye-spy type games.

We assess your child’s decoding skills regularly and ensure they are staying “on track with the pace of the scheme.”

Your child’s individual reading book is closely matched to the assessment. Therefore, they will be able to recognise all of the graphemes that are in the book they are reading.

Children that do not regularly read at home are at risk at falling behind the pace of the scheme; this will have a detrimental impact on their learning across the curriculum.

Each phonics book will need to be read 3 times before it is changed. If you are reading 5x per week, this will mean they see 2 different phonics books per week.

Read 1:- Decode the book

This is where your child will be sounding out and blending the words in the book. They should be able to read the majority of the book without having to break a word down and blend it.

Read 2:- Reading for fluency

They read the book again but with less decoding of individual words.

Read 3: Comprehension

This is where they can answer questions about what they have read and make comments about the story. You could also encourage them to read elements of it with expression.

It is vital your child brings their book and reading diary into school everyday so that we can follow the same rules of Read 1, Read 2 and Read 3. You will also need to sign the diary every time you hear them read so that we know when to change their book.

If you read a section of the book e.g. Page 1-5, please ensure this is accurately recorded in the diary so that your child can continue from the page they left off.

Once children progress beyond decodable texts, they move onto our book scheme so that they can continue to progress in their decoding, fluency and comprehension skills to become avid, expert readers.

Children will visit our school library to choose their selected book. 

Writing at Wincanton Primary School