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English

Conventions on the Rights of a Child

English Curriculum:

Intent:

Reading

At Eastbury Community School we are passionate about reading as we believe it is the best way to give our pupils the best possible start in life.

We believe that all children can learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities and we are determined to make this happen.

We ensure that reading is our whole school priority and we have created a school culture where of our staff members early reading experts.

We aim to provide children with a literacy-rich environment, high quality texts and inspiring learning opportunities, which will help them to:

Gain a life-long enjoyment of reading and books.
Read accurately, fluently and with understanding;
Apply a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed;
Be able to read with expression, clarity and confidence;
Develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar;
Read and respond to a wide range of different types of texts;
Develop a deeper level of emotional intelligence and empathy;
Read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education

Writing

At Eastbury we know the importance of writing in education and in society. It is an essential skill and the ability to write with confidence and accuracy is a tool which will support a child through life. It is our intent that our children understand the social functions of writing in order to use different genres of writing appropriately by considering its purpose and matching it to its audience. Furthermore, it is our intent that every child develops a progressive understanding of grammatical conventions, the way in which punctuation aids understanding and how to apply spelling rules. It is also our intent that all children have a joined, legible and increasingly efficient handwriting style. Through our teaching of writing, we intend to impart pupils with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need in order to reach their potential as individuals

Spoken language

Spoken Language and Listening skills are central to our curriculum; these are developed from the Early Years and throughout our school. We nurture our children’s speaking and listening skills so that they are capable of expressing their own ideas clearly and confidently, in a safe, supportive and stimulating environment.

We enhance children’s speaking and listening skills through a variety of approaches: exploratory play, story time, talk partners, hot seating, PSHE sessions and through collaborative learning across the curriculum. We develop these skills so that our children are capable of expressing their own ideas clearly and with confidence in an environment, where everybody’s views are valued throughout school life and in preparation for their future.

The National Curriculum and the EYFS 2021 Handbook reflect the importance of Spoken Language in pupils’ development across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. Spoken Language underpins the development of Reading and Writing.

Implementation:

We have a well organised English curriculum. A wide range of high quality, challenging and culturally relevant texts are carefully selected as our core texts. Pupils access books appropriate to their level of reading, which is tracked, ensuring all pupils are making excellent progress. Daily guided reading is timetabled to provide enriching experiences through more challenging texts. The sessions follow the Daily Supported Reading scheme in KS1 ans Destination Reader in KS2. Class teachers will also read to their class for the final ten to fifteen minutes of each school day enabling the children to hear fluent, expressive reading. Children are also encouraged to read for pleasure during our 'drop everything and read' sessions as well as in our primary and secondary library. We follow the Sounds Write scheme to teach phonics daily in Early Years and KS1. English lessons are carefully sequenced ensuring that there is progression within and across the year groups with a focus on fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Grammar and handwriting is not only taught discreetly, but embedded within lessons and pupils gain an understanding of how language works by looking at its patterns, structures and origins.

Impact:

By the time children leave Eastbury, we aim for them to be competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader. They can also read books to enhance their knowledge and understanding of all subjects on the curriculum, and communicate their research to a wider audience. They will also be able to write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style in a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. Our children will acquire a wide vocabulary including subject specific words which will support the children in different contexts. Children will also be able to effectively apply the spelling rules and patterns they have been taught during writing. Most importantly, they will develop a love of writing. All children will enjoy writing across a range of genres and be equipped with the essential skills needed to become well-rounded citizens.

How reading is taught across the school.

Early reading in Early Years and KS1- Phonics

Sounds Write is the phonics programme we use to teach our children to read, spell and write. It is effective in teaching the pupils because it starts from what all children know from a very early age – the sounds of their own language. From there, it takes them though the steps of how each of the 44 or so sounds in the English language can be spelt.

At the start of the programme, simple words (one sound, one spelling) CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) are only introduced. Pupils quickly learn to spell words such as ‘mum’, ‘dog’, ‘jam’ and ‘sit’. When all the single-letter sound-spelling correspondence have been established, Sounds Write moves onto words spelt with two letter spellings.

What we believe is needed to become an effective reader based on the Sounds Write model:

letters are spellings of sounds: visual language is a representation of spoken language
a spelling can contain one, two, three, or four letters - examples are: s a t, f i sh, n igh t and w eigh t
there is more than one way of spelling most sounds: the sound 'ae', spelt as in 'name', can be represented as in 'table', in 'rain', in 'eight', in 'play', and so on
many spellings can represent more than one sound: can be the sound 'e' in 'head', 'a-e' in 'break', or 'ee' in 'seat'

Within this framework, we teach the factual knowledge required to become an effective reader and speller: the approximately 176 spellings that represent the 44 or so sounds in English, starting with the most simple one-to-one correspondences.

In order to success in reading and spelling, pupils need to be able to:

segment, or separate sounds in words
blend, or push sounds together to form words
manipulate sounds: take sounds out and put sounds into words

Sounds-Write provides opportunities for practising these skills on an everyday basis until pupils achieve the automaticity required for fluent reading and spelling.

Guided reading in KS1- In Year 1 and 2 we follow the scheme Daily Supported Reading (DSR). It is a programme that ensures children in KS1 develop reading fluency by reading authentic language stories everyday. DSR is implemented in addition to our systematic, synthetic phonics programme Sounds Write.

What is Daily Supported Reading?

It is a whole class reading approach delivered in 5 small groups where the children can enjoy daily independent reading. In order for the sessions to run smoothly, each group is led by a trained adult and the books chosen match closely to the reading levels.

The aim of DSR is to help children become independent readers through intense weekly reading of two books to ensure fluency, comprehension and enjoyment of reading.

Adults use adapted lesson guides to move children on and make sound judgements about when to do so. The adult that leads the group makes a judgement at the end of each week and most children are expected to move weekly or fortnightly.

The DSR lead will then move children across groups depending on the group assessment/feedback. This is completed on a tracker sheet.

Guided reading in KS2- In KS2, we follow the scheme Destination Reader (DR). At Eastbury, we believe that children should have the opportunity to read for both pleasure and purpose.

What is Destination Reader?

DR is an approach to reading that would lead to a deeper understanding of texts, the development of oracy around reading to motivate children to read for pleasure and an increase in the breadth of children’s reading. Destination reader covers all the expectations for the KS2 National Curriculum for reading: Word reading and breadth of reading are built on throughout the lessons with an explicit focus on understanding and engaging with texts.

Just like DSR in KS1, both approaches form part of a reading continuum that supports and enables children to become independent, active processors of print and meaning. This supports them to deepen their understanding and comprehension around texts.

How writing taught across the school.

Talk for Writing

At Eastbury Community School Primary, we provide an appropriate, inclusive engaging English curriculum. The development of children’s language is crucial to their success across the curriculum. We want all children to be excellent communicators, to listen actively and to speak with confidence. At Eastbury Community School Primary, children are helped to develop a love of reading and to become skilful and imaginative writers.

Talk for Writing allows children to develop their oracy and writing skills. By pairing actions with the words, it allows the text to stay in the long-term memory. Our children will have the opportunity to learn a particular genre over three weeks and through teacher scaffolding, such as shared writing, they develop their writing skills which will allow them to produce a piece of independent work which is assessed.

Spoken language

The national curriculum for English reflects the importance of spoken language in pupils’ development across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing. The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak are vital for developing their vocabulary and grammar and their understanding for reading and writing.

At Eastbury, we value spoken language as an important part of the children’s entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Spoken Language provides the children with the opportunities to develop and extend skills and an opportunity to express their individual interests, thoughts and ideas.

Our aim is to enable the children improve their levels of spoken language so that all pupils are able to communicate effectively and confidently in front of any type of audience. These skills are encouraged in every area of our curriculum as good communication skills can enhance every type of learning. The children are encouraged to explore ideas through talk; challenge each other’s opinions and develop their own reasoned arguments, as well as talking in full sentences with a clear and confident voice.

Pupils should be taught to:

listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and build vocabulary and knowledge
articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
give well-structured descriptions and explanations
maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas
speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English
participate in discussions, presentations, performances and debates
gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)
consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others
select and use appropriate registers for effective communication.

How the curriculum is sequenced and how we build on prior knowledge and skills.

At Eastbury, we use the National Curriculum to sequence our English curriculum. We ensure that we cover the statutory requirements for spoken language, reading (word reading and comprehension) and writing (transcription, composition, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation). We use a skills progression document as well as long term and medium term planning to ensure that our pupils revisit previous knowledge in addition to developing new skills and knowledge.

How we implement the recovery curriculum.

Due to the Covid-19 school closures, one of our key priorities was to ensure that our children feel safe and secure as they returned to school. In order to close the gaps in the pupil's knowledge and understanding, English skills are rehearsed everyday ensuring that their is opportunity for a lot of oral rehearsal. In addition to this, grammar starter activities are done at the beginning of each lesson based on gaps that have been identified. Through out the week, shared writing is used to scaffold the children as well as pre- teaching of particular aspects.

Here at Eastbury we ensure that there is plenty of opportunity for reading in all subjects with decoding, phonics practise and vocabulary at the forefront. Ongoing assessments are also used to adapt the curriculum to address misconceptions.