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
English
INTENT
The 2014 National Curriculum aims to ensure that in English: Teachers should develop pupil’s spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject.
The intention of the English curriculum we offer at Wincanton Primary School is to give children a competence in English that enables them to communicate effectively at home, at school and in the wider world, leading to improved life skills and wider opportunities. We intend to develop skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, including all of their essential inherent skills, enabling children to organise and express their own thoughts and to access the knowledge and ideas of others.
An understanding of how language is the vehicle for communication in both oral and written forms is paramount in our thinking and planning. To become literate, children need to understand that writing is a representation of speech, and that both come in a variety of forms linked to purpose. At Wincanton Primary, we are intent on teaching children that these aspects of language are inextricably linked, and can rarely be experienced or learnt discretely.
AIMS of ENGLISH AT WINCANTON PRIMARY SCHOOL
At Wincanton Primary School, we aim to give children the opportunity and encouragement to:
IMPLEMENTATION
English is a core subject and is at the heart of our curriculum. Each Learning Experience covers a range of reading and writing genres and, where appropriate, links to other areas of the curriculum. The use of high quality texts is used to teach the core skills in-line with the expectations of the National Curriculum. Staff have completed extensive training with Leah Crawford to fully embed the use of high quality texts and this is reflected in our long term planning.
Our planning incorporates the structure:
Red Box work – consolidation/revisiting of an area of previous learning displayed on slides for children to respond to on white boards at the beginning of every lesson
Teaching input – learning objective is shared. The class teacher models the skill to the whole class and success criteria are shared/generated. Children begin to develop fluency on individual whiteboards.
Independent – Independent work provides the means for all children to develop the skills promoted within the lesson.
Plenary – provides opportunities to justify learning, embed knowledge and key skills, recap work completed in the lesson.
Spoken language is promoted throughout the curriculum and across all subjects. Spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation are promoted throughout all writing opportunities, with each year group planning carefully building on prior knowledge and embedding skills and knowledge.
IMPACT
Throughout each lesson, formative assessment takes place and feedback is given to the children to ensure they are meeting the specific learning objective. Teachers then use this assessment to influence their daily planning and ensure they are providing an English curriculum that will allow each child to progress and be challenged at a level appropriate to them, moving those children on who are ready to study at greater depth. The teaching of English is also monitored on a termly basis through book scrutinies, learning walks and lesson observations. Each term children from Year 1 and above, complete summative assessments to help them to develop their testing approach and demonstrate their understanding of the topics covered. The results from both the formative assessment and summative assessment is then used to determine children’s progress and attainment.
In phonics, all teachers will formally assess their children’s progress at the beginning of the year and the end of every term in order to inform their planning and regroup the children if needed.
At the end of Year One the children will take the statutory National Phonic
Screening Test. If the test shows that children are still working towards the expected standard then they will work in a small intervention group to enable them to retake the test in Year Two.
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.
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