Mrs Johnson - English Subject Leader

‘A small school for all, making a big difference’

At Morland Area CE School, we are passionate about the enjoyment of reading. Our aim is to foster a love of books and reading through the study of a broad spectrum of texts and authors. Our English curriculum reflects the importance of spoken and written language, so that pupils develop cognitively, socially and linguistically from nursery to Y6. The high quality and variety of language that pupils hear, speak and read, enables the development and enjoyment of their vocabulary and grammar, so that our pupils are immersed in a positive culture of reading and writing for a variety of purposes and audiences, across our broad curriculum – making a big difference.

Purpose of Study

Aims

The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

• 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
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

The children at Morland Area C of E Primary school follow the 2014 English NC programme of study and are supported by:

• Read Write Inc phonics scheme and decodable reading books
• Rising Stars Spelling/Spelling Shed
• Oxford Tree banded reading books and free reading books to aid fluency and reading.
• Reading and Writing is supported by enjoyable and diverse texts as well as sites such as The Literacy Shed/Power of Reading and depth of experience in teaching English.

These schemes and resources support teachers to deliver well-structured and exciting opportunities that enable our children to learn, revisit and progress their English at an age appropriate level.

Subject Content

At Morland, our curriculum for English reflects the importance of phonics, through reading, writing and speaking across the whole curriculum. We intend to foster a love for English by offering our children a range of opportunities through reading, writing and experimentation with their learning. We strive to immerse our children in a rich environment (both inside and outside the classroom) and provide our children with an abundance of vocabulary and technical language so they can share their thoughts and feelings, resulting in them being confident to communicate their ideas. Our lessons provide hooks, resources and high quality texts that inspire children to explore new and exciting worlds and in turn use these as they become their own authors through their writing.

Reading/Writing

EYFS and KS 1

Phonics

Our youngest children will begin their early reading and writing development in Class 1 supported by the Read Write Inc. programme of study to teach synthetic phonics and begin the journey of learning to read and write with confidence. This method guides them, step by step, from learning initial sounds to reading and writing sentences with confidence. By giving them the fundamental skills needed, our children confidently segment, decode and build sounds into words. Once they have the initial building blocks we aim to develop pupils’ pace, fluency and accuracy in their own reading so that it may improve their reading comprehension skills. Teachers and TA’s in these year groups are regularly given CPD opportunities to update and refresh their phonics teaching in line with our school approach. Children in Reception and Class 1 receive daily phonics sessions with a variety of engaging activities to introduce, consolidate and build confidence of these phonic sounds in their reading and writing. Each group works with a teaching assistant/teacher for 25 minutes per session, as well as with plenty of repetition of spotting these sounds throughout the school day.  Then assessment of their phonics knowledge each half term/termly, identifies progress and informs teachers planning.

Reading

From the EYFS, Children’s books are matched with their phonics ability and reading level. This ensures that the books children are given are phonetically decodable and aid sight recognition through word repetition to aid learning and start them on their journey of a love of reading. All children read regularly to an adult to support their progression in class and to an adult at home. Then children are guided towards exciting reading books with a little challenge to aid progression once they are more fluent.

KS 1 and KS 2

Higher up the school, children continue to be matched to their phonic ability or reading level to develop fluency and comprehension. Pupils will also read to an adult in school to aid and support reading practice throughout the week. Daily reading is encouraged and celebrated in each class in order to promote a lifelong love of reading.

All our children are given the opportunity to immerse themselves in a wide variety of texts from a range of cultures. Through shared texts and explicit teaching, they experience a range of vocabulary, giving them the understanding and language to flourish during their daily English lessons and Whole Class Guided Reading sessions. Reading assessments are carried out regularly, throughout the school, these aid teachers to check progression and develop learning opportunities and adapt the teaching of reading as necessary.

At Morland we promote a love of reading across school; our imaginative and engaging reading areas, Book Club every Thursday – with mixed aged groups, family reading mornings, our themed writing week, our reading pod/snug in the school grounds and Literature themed trips - give all children the chance to be enveloped in a world of books during their time at Morland and ensuring that they leave us as able and independent communicators, with the confidence to read and write fluently. They will be thoroughly prepared in all areas of English to take the next steps in their educational journey.

Writing/Handwriting

From EYFS to Year 6

Initially our children explore the environment of EYFS and use mark making, large gross motor skills and fine motor skills to experiment with expressing themselves as emergent writers. As they become more confident with wring for a purpose our children begin to use the conventions of writing and SPaG to portray their ideas. Alongside this a variety of writing genres are used to inspire our children and they are encouraged and supported to extract key features to apply to their own written work. In the process of becoming independent writers, pupils are given clear purposes and audiences for their work.  In each class the key writing features are taught and modelled by the teacher and additional scaffolding is given when needed. Pupils have the opportunity to complete a piece of extended writing regularly, which allows them to further embed and develop their writing skills, to show their flair. This also enables teachers to assess children’s progress. As part of this process children edit and draft their own writing. This will either be in response to the teacher’s marking and verbal feedback or their own proof-reading. Regularly the use of ‘hooks’ give our children the opportunity to write with inspiration such as our themed writing week. Letter formation and handwriting is taught discreetly and encouraged in all areas of the curriculum. Across school our children take a great pride in their handwriting and the children’s achievements are celebrated in a variety of ways. With the ability to write and express themselves in all areas of the curriculm, often with beauty and flair, our children at Morland will be thoroughly prepared in all areas of English to take the next steps in their educational journey.

SPaG

Grammar, punctuation and spelling are taught both discretely and within the context of reading and writing, so that learnt skills are applied to good effect. The teaching of phonics continues into KS2 as necessary; children are assessed and work in small groups. In order to support children through school with their spelling/phonic ability we use Lexia, our spelling programme, which runs within school for children who benefit from this.

At Morland CE School all children make excellent progression in English and this starts with our firm foundation in EYFS. Our end of KS1 assessments for 2023 show that the percentage of children achieving expected outcomes in reading is 93% and for Writing it is 87%. This is supported by the high number of pupils that pass the Phonics \Screening Check at the end of Y1, with a 81% pass rate for 2023.The vast majority of our older pupils are equipped with the English skills they need to succeed at Secondary school. This is reflected in our end of KS 2 assessments for 2023, with 71% of pupils meeting expected outcomes in Reading and 86% of pupils meeting expected outcomes in Writing. Our assessments in English are also a reflection of the excellent teaching and comprehensive curriculum received by pupils in EYFS, KS 1 and 2.