English - Raynham Primary School

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At Raynham, we intend to provide an English curriculum which is engaging, inclusive and ambitious. Therefore, English language and literature is at the very heart of our whole school curriculum. We follow the National Curriculum and our careful planning and teaching ensures that children’s abilities to speak, listen, read and write for a wide range of purposes are developed, challenged and extended.

Key Principles

acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
appreciate a rich and varied reading diet
write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
use discussion in order to learn; children should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas are competent in the art of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

We teach English through:

Phonics

We use Read, Write Inc. which is a consistent and robust synthetic phonics programme to support early reading.

To find out about how we teach phonics and how you can help, click here.

Reading

We aim to provide children with a literacy-rich environment, high quality texts including books with diverse cultural representation in order to inspire learning and promote a life-long enjoyment of reading. We intend for all our children to read accurately, fluently develop secure comprehension skills. Children will develop stamina and read with expression and confidence. Reading is taught across the curriculum as we believe reading will enable children to access the wider curriculum. We aim to create a love of reading, by reading to and with the children, and by supporting our parents to make reading an enjoyable part of their daily routine. We have high expectations of all our children and we encourage them to challenge themselves. In order for our pupils to become confident, competent and fluent readers we are committed to teaching high quality guided reading lessons.

Key Principles

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
to teach reading with consistency across the school

Daily Soft Start reading, independent, paired and 1:1 reading

Children start the day with a book. This is the opportunity for the teachers and support staff to hear children read on a 1:1 basis. Children read independently or with a partner for extended periods everyday enabling them to improve fluency and become self-reliant readers.

Guided Reading

Our aim is to develop fluent readers with excellent comprehension skills. From Year 2 children take part in regular whole class Guided Reading lessons. They demonstrate their understanding and thinking behind a range of texts. During our structured ‘Guided Reading’ lessons, children are taught very specific skills of reading (content domains). We use the Reading VIPERS (Literacy Shed) to teach these domain skills and they allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these which allows for targeted questioning afterwards. During the lessons there is a focus on book talk, talking to a partner and explaining your ideas as part of a class discussion. We enable children to tackle comprehension through ‘scaffold questions’ which addresses vocabulary development and word meaning. Children then progress to developing further reading skills. In order to develop text meaning and vocabulary, comprehension texts are often linked to humanities and science which enable a cross curricular approach to developing reading in the wider curriculum. We believe it is important for children to read a range of high quality texts, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In year 2 children who have completed the phonics programme will begin whole class guided reading sessions. Reading activities are scaffolded to ensure all the children’s needs are met.

Reading for Pleasure

Children are read to each day by their class teacher. We have a reading spine for each year group so that children have a core set of books that they are read to (details are on the website – virtual library). As well as this, the teacher recommends books to read to the class or a recommendation from a child. We have year group storytime sessions to promote a love of reading and online workshops or guest authors to inspire our children. We mark various events throughout the year including World Book Day, Roald Dahl and Poetry day and try to make these cross curricular and meaningful for the children. We have regular online author visits and competitions.

Social Reading Environments & Class Libraries

We believe that our social reading environments are very important to enable and enthuse the children with reading. Each classroom has an inviting book corner and a wide range of reading books. Each class has a favourite Teacher’s favourite book box for children to choose from. All children choose a reading book to take home and this reading book is changed weekly. In our Early Years / KS1 outdoor area we also include quiet nooks and spaces for children to read, perform and role play stories using story bags and props to enhance this. Displays carry significant messages and we have displays around the school and in classes linked to reading, texts and authors.

Home School Partnership

Home reading is a chance to practise skills taught in school but also a chance to develop a love for reading. All children across the school have a home school communication book for reading. In Reception, Year 1 and for any other child accessing RWI phonics programme a book that reflects their phonic ability is sent home each week giving them the opportunity to practise what they have been learning in class. In addition to this, all children take home a fiction or nonfiction book from our class libraries for parents and children to share together, enjoy and help build vocabulary. All parents have the opportunity to fill in a Reading Record Book to let us know how your child is getting on with reading at home.

Our reading spine is also available on our website as well as other links and story time sessions from the Head teacher. Oxford Owl is used to support reading and comprehension at home linked to the RWI programme.

Writing

It is our intent that writing across the curriculum will inspire, engage and challenge all pupils, enabling them to develop the skills to effectively communicate their thoughts, ideas and emotions to others. We aim to build the pupils’ stamina for writing, vocabulary knowledge and understanding of grammar, by creating a positive approach to an increasingly wide range of text types. We adopt a holistic approach – making connections between reading and writing and develop a love of literature. We want all our children to be proud of their cultural and linguistic heritage and study stories with diverse representation to celebrate our community at Raynham. We believe our children need to be able to orally rehearse and explain before they begin writing. We use the Talk for Writing process to imitate and immerse our children in the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own. We strive to develop skills in communication and oracy so our children can access all areas of the curriculum. We make writing links across the curriculum to ensure English learning is relevant and meaningful. We intend to create writers who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing and enable our children to be able to confidently use the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling. We ensure children take pride in their work and have a fluent, cursive handwriting style. We provide experiences which allow their imaginations to flourish.

Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation

We believe that spelling, grammar and punctuation need to be explicitly taught, assessed and reviewed regularly. Teachers should link and model these elements when teaching a specific genre. We ensure the model text includes the grammatical features that help the children see how it functions within meaningful text. We introduce grammar through games and activities linked to text type and progression.

With regards to Spelling, teachers will show pupils how to understand the relationships between words, how to understand nuances in meaning, and how to develop their understanding of, and ability to use, figurative language. Children investigate spelling, root words and the etymology of words. We focus particularly on common exception words for each year group as well as words that have been identified by teachers as being commonly misspelt by our children. All children Y1-Y6 learn spellings weekly at home and online using the Spelling Shed programme.

English Whole school Overviews, Progression Maps

The English overview reflects the content, knowledge and skills that are critical for children to progress through the curriculum in each year. There is a clearly mapped curriculum coverage document. This shows the core texts and genres the children will be learning. We also ensure that all children engage and learn how to write fiction, non fiction and poetry.

Blended Learning

Children get weekly homework, a combination of paper and online through Google Classroom to consolidate their learning in school. In addition, we actively encourage our children to practise their spellings on SpellingShed.