Curriculum Plans and Subject overviews

English Curriculum Intent Statement

Speaking and Listening

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” (Tony Robbins)

Our intention is for children to:

• Express their opinions, articulate feelings and listen to and respond appropriately in a range of situations;
• Participate with different groups of children to present ideas with confidence, valuing the views of others;
• Speak audibly and confidently before an audience (for example when leading class and whole-school worship; when performing in school plays).

Implementation

Approaches to teaching and learning encourage pupils to voice their ideas in small group and class discussions, as we recognise that sharing and explaining concepts with peers enhances learning. Staff model the use of higher level vocabulary within their speech and expanding children’s vocabulary is a key focus from EYFS. Subject specific vocabulary is embedded across the curriculum, through teacher modelling, in context. Contextual learning helps children to understand new words and supports them in including them in their work.

Guided Reading sessions encourage pupils to explore unfamiliar vocabulary and expand their knowledge of words. Staff model correct grammar in speech and encourage children to reflect this in their use of spoken and written language. Children are given the chance to orally rehearse ideas for writing regularly.

Drama is used across the curriculum to explore and engage children in their learning. This gives children the chance to embed vocabulary in shared activities. Each class leads worship once a year for parents, at least once a year in church and individual pupils lead class worship on a weekly basis.

Impact

In a safe and encouraging environment, children develop into confident communicators who illuminate the kindness in each other by listening, speaking with respect and empathy and explaining with clarity and confidence.  Children recognise that speaking and listening can lie at the heart of conveying character, and that through speaking and listening effectively, misunderstandings can be addressed and relationships enhanced.

READING

Phonics (early reading and spelling)

At Reedham Primary and Nursery School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Reedham Primary and Nursery School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

 Comprehension

At Reedham Primary and Nursery School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. 

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader  (Mrs S Bethell), who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

Implementation

Foundations for phonics in Squirrel Class

We provide a balance of child-initiated and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the EYFS for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:

• sharing high-quality stories and poems
• learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
• activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending and tuning into sounds
• attention to high-quality language
• practitioners activate curiosity and comprehension of reading

We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

 Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
• Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
• We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:

• Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
• Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

 Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

·       Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.

·       We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Rapid Catch-upassessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach these using the Rapid Catch-upresources – at pace. 

·       These short, sharp lessons last 15-20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.

 Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

·       We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

• are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’.
• are monitored by the class teacher on a regular basis.

·       Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

• decoding
• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
• comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

·       In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

·       In Years 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

 Home reading

·       The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.

• Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children. We share the research behind the importance and impact of sharing quality children’s books with parents through workshops, leaflets and the Everybody read! resources.
• We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

 Additional reading support for vulnerable children

Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.

 Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectation of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
• Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
•  Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
• The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

KS2 Reading plan

LKS2 – daily for 20/25 mins

UKS2 – 3 x week for 20 mins

– Schemes of Work to include 60 second reads and Ashley Booth resources

– Also use fluency approaches in foundation subjects such as choral and echo reading

– Extract based – sometimes linked to other subjects studying at the time, sometimes extracts from good quality books to encourage them to read the full book. Also video and picture comprehensions occasionally to allow equal access for all.

– Approx. 20% of texts are non-fiction, 80% fiction/poetry as these are the areas they struggle with most in assessments

– Lessons should focus on the same text for at least three sessions to build on prior knowledge.

Typical plan for extract

Session 1

1. Pre-teach vocab – Discuss vocabulary that you think they will struggle with before reading – show pictures etc.
2. Read the text to the children, modelling expression/fluency (ensure you read this the same every time!)
3. Echo reading and choral reading of aspects of the text – for expression, discuss how to read specific words etc.
4. Refer to reading strategies poster/bookmark and discuss the text
5. Speed read – Children to mark how far they get in 1 minute of reading

Session 2

1. Recap vocabulary from session 1
2. Read the text to the children modelling expression/fluency (ensure you read this the same every time!)
3. Echo reading and choral reading of aspects of the text – for expression, discuss how to read specific words etc.
4. Speed read – Children to mark how far they get in 1 minute of reading
5. Discuss reading comprehension style questions – main focus on word meaning, retrieval and inference (For inference = PEE/APE answers, Answer it, Prove it (Evidence from the text) and Explain (Why does your evidence support your answer) 

Session 3

1. Recap vocabulary from session 1
2. Read the text to the children modelling expression/fluency (ensure you read this the same every time!)
3. Echo reading and choral reading of aspects of the text – for expression, discuss how to read specific words etc.
4. Speed read – Children to mark how far they get in 1 minute of reading
5. Discuss reading comprehension style questions – main focus on word meaning, retrieval and inference (For inference = APE answers, Answer it, Prove it (Evidence from the text) and Explain (Why does your evidence support your answer) 

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

 We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

•  We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Reedham Primary and Nursery School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
• Every classroom displays books to invite and encourage children to develop a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
• In EYFS, children have access to the reading area every day in their free-flow environment and the books are continually refreshed and carefully chosen.
• Children from Heron Class onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school.  In school, adults record any 1 to 1 reading sessions on a school reading record which is kept in the class intervention folder. 
• UKS2 record their views and feedback on the books they have read in a book review which is displayed to inspire others to read.  
• The school library is made available for classes to use. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits, reading cafes, national events etc)
• We use the Everybody read! resources to grow our teachers’ knowledge of current books, the most recent research and to grow our own Reading for Pleasure practice.
• School Council have organised Peer Reading between children in EYFS/KS1 and KS2 children. 

Peer Reading

Once a week, across the school, children work with their peers to hear each other read.

Impact

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

• Assessment for learning is used:

o   daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support

o   weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

• Summative assessment for Reception and Year 1 is used:

o   every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.

o   by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

• Fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used:

o   in Year 1, when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books

o   with children following the Rapid Catch-up programme in Years 2 to 6, when they are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books

o   to assess when children are ready to exit their programme. For Year 1 children, this is when they read the final fluency assessment at 60–70+ words per minute. Older children can exit the Rapid Catch-up programme when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute. At these levels, children should have sufficient fluency to tackle any book at age-related expectations. After exiting their programme, children do not need to read any more fully decodable books.

•  A placement assessment is used:

o   with any child new to the school in Reception and Year 1 to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching.

• The Rapid Catch-up assessment is used

o   with any child new to the school in Year 2 and above to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching. 

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for Rapid Catch-up in Years 2 to 6

• Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through:

o   the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriate teaching

o   the Rapid Catch-up summative assessments to assess progress and inform teaching

o   the Rapid Catch-up fluency assessments when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books for age 7+.

• The fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They also assess when children are ready to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme, which is when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute.

Reading in KS2

As we believe reading is a key tool for life; teaching children to move from decoding words to becoming excellent readers is a key and integral part of what we do at Reedham. We have lots of opportunities for reading exciting books and materials. Reading is taught as an integral part of our new curriculum, where it is embedded into our everyday learning, as well as being explicitly taught through the week, focussing on specific strategies to develop their reading comprehension right through to Year 6.   We have a range of high interest/ low ability and dyslexic friendly books to help those children in KS2, who find reading more challenging. These books are a hook to help interest children in reading.

Once a child can read fluently through the levels, they become a free reader and have access to a wide range of chapter books in our library. All children are encouraged to read and to answer questions about what they are reading every day and explicitly in guided reading teacher-led sessions.

Summer holiday challenges are given to children to keep them excited and engaged in reading over the summer. World Book Day is celebrated at Reedham. Throughout the year we encourage children to have a love of reading by offering book shops and borrowing. Parents are invited in, throughout the year to a number of workshops known as reading cafes. In these sessions parents are given an insight into a variety of reading areas such as vocabulary and inference. We have a strong belief that children benefit from hearing stories read to them as well as them reading to themselves. Each class has a daily timetabled story time, where a class book is shared. The teachers stress the patterns and intonation in the words during these sessions to help children understand how to read out loud and the fluency needed.

We begin making children word aware from the Early Years Foundation Stage, throughout the whole school, vocabulary is a key priority. Topic related words and those related to concepts in science, history and geography are taught explicitly. These are then revisited and used many times throughout the topic and beyond, with the hope that children will retain them in their long term memory and become part of their everyday vocabulary.

• Strong links with our local library 

• Teacher reading at the end of each day
• In class reading lessons – excerpts from high quality texts, from a range of genres
• Yearly reading challenges

Handwriting

At Reedham Primary and Nursery we are very proud of our pupil’s handwriting and take particular care in our handwriting style. We use Letter-Join’s on-line handwriting resource and Lesson Planners as the basis of our handwriting framework, as it covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum.

Aims:

·  To develop a neat, legible, speedy handwriting style using continuous cursive letters, which leads to producing letters and words automatically in independent writing.

·  To establish and maintain high expectations for the presentation of written work.

·  For pupils to understand, by the end of Year 6, the importance of neat presentation and the need for different letterforms (cursive, printed or capital letters) to help communicate meaning clearly.

Expectations

All teaching staff are encouraged to model the printed or cursive style of handwriting chosen for each year group in our school in all their handwriting, whether on whiteboards, displays or in pupils’ books.  Pupils experience coherence and continuity in the learning and teaching of handwriting across all school years and are encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their work. Our objective is to help pupils enjoy learning and developing their handwriting with a sense of achievement and pride.  Handwriting is a cross-curricular task and will be taken into consideration during all lessons. Formal teaching of handwriting will be carried out regularly and systematically to ensure Key Stage targets are met.

Progression of the teaching of Handwriting – See Appendix 3

Spelling

Spelling is a high priority at Reedham. Children are given a weekly set of spellings to learn at home. Some are common exception words (tricky words where usual spelling rules or applying phonics do not apply) and others follow a spelling pattern or an element of grammar taught throughout that week. Children are given opportunities to use weekly and statutory spellings in their writing and are explicitly taught how to use them. 

Writing

At Reedham School, it is our vision that every child will learn to write by being given real and exciting materials and opportunities. At the beginning of their learning journey, in the Early Years, children are given opportunities to write in all areas of the curriculum and access this through continuous provision inside and outside. From the autumn term, the children experience many fine motor skill activities (for example, ‘funky fingers’ or ‘doh disco’) these enable the children to develop the muscles in their fingers and wrists, in order to be able to hold a writing implement effectively. 

In Reception, from the first half of the Autumn Term the children have a daily 20 minute phonics input, this includes children forming letters correctly and giving meaning to the marks they make.

Writing is an integral part of lessons at Reedham and children are taught to write for a range of purposes, by linking all our writing to topics, through our wider curriculum. At Reedham, we consistently use new research and ideas, staff take CPD opportunities to support teaching and learning and to help improve the quality of our writing. Children are taught to write imaginatively and articulate texts using the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach. This involves immersing children in powerful writing which they can learn and perform. To ensure progress is ongoing, we also use a ‘slow writing’ initiative that teaches the children the basics of sentence structure. As part of this, the children edit and improve the quality of their sentences. To ensure they are secure in a variety of age appropriate writing techniques, we have put in place a progression document which details the different sentence types to be taught in each year group. The sentence types are designed to help the children write exciting, sophisticated pieces of writing that use the right tone for their purpose. Children are explicitly taught age appropriate grammar and punctuation and encouraged to utilise these in their writing in line with the National Curriculum objectives for writing.

English Writing Overview across Year R to Year 6

https://www.reedham.norfolk.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/English-Curriculum-Overview-website.docx

https://www.reedham.norfolk.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Reading-Overview.docx