English

What does English look like at

Easington C of E Primary School?

 

Easington C of E Primary progression of knowledge and skills WRITING.

Easington C of E Whole School progression of knowledge and skills READING

 

INTENT

Subject Leader – Miss O’Neil

Reading:

Much like our school vision, “May we give them the roots to grow and the wings to fly” we seek to give children a robust grammatical foundation and the inspiration to create magical worlds in their writing. Children are encouraged to use their reading to cultivate their ideas in writing and have a greater impact on the reader. Pupils are taught decoding and comprehension, along with spelling, grammar, and punctuation in skill specific lessons to support their understanding of the English language. e.

Writing:

Much like our school vision, “May we give them the roots to grow and the wings to fly” we seek to give children the skills to escape with a book and create magical worlds in their writing. Pupils are taught decoding and comprehension, along with spelling, grammar, and punctuation in skill specific lessons to support their understanding of the English language.

IMPLEMENTATION AND CONTENT

Teaching and Learning Time:

Guided Reading, English, phonics, and basic skills lessons are taught daily. In EYFS and KS1 English is taught for 1 hour. In KS2 English is taught for 1 hour a day. Guided Reading, phonics, and basic skills lessons and 30-minute lessons 3-5 times a week.

Planning

• Long Term Planning: The National Curriculum and year group specific long-term plans provided by the English Lead.
• Medium Term Planning: An English genre coverage document stipulates which genres are to be covered within each year group.  Also, teachers produce a medium-term plan (‘a two week’ plan) which breaks down the specific objectives relating to the specific teaching sequence.
• Short Term Planning: There is a daily English lesson-60 minutes.  Essential components of each lesson include a clear, year group specific Learning Objective and a clear and concise Success Criteria.  This will be evident in books using the ‘Success Criteria’ label which will also be used by the children and teachers to show assessment within each lesson.  Short term planning is supported by numerous materials from a range of sources (the Literacy Shed, Grammarsaurus etc) and incorporates the Teaching Cycle (Teach, Practice, Apply and Review/Assess).

• Basic Skills:  Basic Skills will focus on recapping and consolidating key basic skills (GPS, comprehension) and concepts, as well as basics such as sentence construction etc identified and highlighted by ongoing AfL.  This will take place EVERY DAY FROM 09:00-09:30 in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6-this should be evident in classes on Learning Walks etc.  This will be monitored closely by SLT.  This will take place in the form of 10 minutes on handwriting, to address the gaps in fine motor skills and letter formation that arose during the COVID 19 pandemic and have been highlighted as a barrier for learning. This handwriting will follow the ‘Letter join’ approach. The resources for this can be found not only on the Letter Join website but also on the Staff Shared section under ‘Handwriting’. During this time, the Teacher will model the letters and the children will complete activities based on this for 10 minutes. Following on from the 10 minutes of handwriting, children will then complete 10 minutes of Maths. This could be in the form of mental or arithmetic work, or times tables. The expectation would be that children in Year 3 and 4 would complete times tables practise to prepare them for the Year 4 times table check. Finally, in the remaining time, the class teacher will lead an ‘immediate intervention’ session. This is be based on the assessment for learning from the previous few days of teaching. For example, if children had struggled with the vocabulary in a fraction unit, then this intervention would involve activities based on the proper Mathematical vocabulary in fractions.
• Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar (PVPG): During the Autumn term (1 or 2) children will complete the PVGP unit that is relevant to their year group. This takes place when children’s transcription is fluent. In Year 1 this takes place generally in Autumn 2 based on AfL, whereas in Years 2-6 this takes place in Autumn 1.

September 2022

From September 2022, the Genre Coverage document will be used to select the books and the time spent on each purpose. The Long-Term Plan will be used to complete specific SPAG and Reading objectives.

Medium Term Planning

Teachers produce a medium-term plan which will be linked to the Genre Coverage Document and the Long-Term Plan. This will show the activities and differentiation in each lesson.

Short Term Planning

Each class teacher is required to produce a two-week overview-which provides greater detail of the specific National Curriculum, year group objectives being taught.  Each genre is broken down into two distinct weekly ‘blocks’:

Week 1 – Reading and SPAG Week – during this week, teachers plan to teach specific reading objectives as stipulated by the National Curriculum for their year group.  Activities during this week could include writing summaries, completing reading comprehensions, performance, and drama etc depending upon the genre being covered. They will also plan and teach specific grammatical, spelling and punctuation related objectives from the National Curriculum.  These will be specific to each year group and will be clearly evidenced within the children’s books.

Week 2 – Writing Week – during this week, the children are required to produce a piece of writing based on the genre that has been studied during the previous two weeks of the block.  It is an expectation that the children will use the reading knowledge from the reading week and the GPS features studied in week two in their composition.  Children will plan, draft, edit and re-draft during this week in order to produce the highest quality of work that they are capable of.

In instances where the National Curriculum requirements for each year group do NOT align, a split teaching approach must be employed to ensure that each year group receives their curriculum entitlement. 

Success Criteria labels will be used as an indicator of the progress that has occurred throughout the course of the lesson. The labels need to be specific to the year group objective and the Success Criteria specific to each year group.  The success criteria SHOULD NOT be generic but SHOULD BE differentiated and matched to the children’s ability. 

After the Learning Objective Label is stuck in neatly, the children will complete a ‘flashback 4’ style piece of handwriting, in line with expectations in Maths and English. During this starter time, children will complete some handwriting work in line with the LTP on Letter Join for their year group. This should take no longer than 5-10 minutes.

The modelling resources used by teachers to facilitate learning should indicate progress clearly and use models, images and other interactive stimuli vital to the children achieving mastery (by the end of the academic year).  Marking and assessment within lessons (Verbal Feedback), at the point of learning, should be an integral part of practice, in particular margin marking. Please use the ‘Grow’ to further challenge the Greater Depth children or to consolidate learning and ‘Glow’ to show areas where children have succeeded.  It is an expectation that when the children’s work merits it, the ‘Grow’ will be given, but certainly at the end of each extended piece of writing.     Crucially, teachers need to mark and acknowledge the ‘Grow’ feedback by marking and initialling it.

When marking any piece of work that contains writing (English, History, Geography etc) the teacher must mark to the Success Criteria of the lesson.  However, it is essential that the basic skills of writing are also marked and addressed if required ie. It would be unacceptable to allow an unpunctuated piece of writing to permitted in History.  The basic skills of English need to be utilised accurately at all times and in all subjects.

Phonics

In EYFS, phonics will be taught first thing in the morning, following the morning song at 09:15-09:45. Phonics will occur in Year 1 from 09:00-09:30 on a daily basis. In Year 2, the phonics session is from 09:00-09:30.  Please note that in Key Stage 2, phonics will occur as an intervention session.

As a school, we use the Sounds Write approach to teach phonics. This is matched precisely to our reading scheme in EYFS and KS1. This was a recommendation in the Bold Beginnings Documents and ensures coverage over the 2 years and a smooth transition from EYFS into year 1. This also develops confidence, as children have the knowledge and skills to decode the books that they are reading.

In EYFS, phonics delivery is aligned with the schools reading scheme and the Sounds Write approach of teaching ‘sets’ of sounds from the initial code is used.

Similarly, in Year 1 and 2 phonics delivery is aligned with the schools reading scheme reading scheme and the Sounds Write approach of teaching ‘sets’ of sounds is used. Revision of the previous sounds is also commonplace.

EYFS – The initial code is taught in ‘sets’.

Year 1 and 2 – a revision of initial code then extended code is taught in ‘sets’.

Where Assessment for Learning indicates it is necessary, children in Key Stage 2 will access phonics interventions in order to address any gaps in their knowledge.

Reading

At Easington Church of England Primary, reading takes various forms.

• Guided Reading – this takes place every day from 12:00-12:25 across school for KS2 or 11:00-11:30 to facilitate Ipad usage.  In Year 1 Guided Reading takes place from 13:15-13:45 and in Year 2 Guided Reading is taught between 13:15-13:45. The teacher will hear individual children read and record the information on the school’s proforma. In KS1 and KS2, specific books will be used for Guided Reading (please see Guided Reading Policy), Reading Plus, or comprehension texts will utilised based on AfL. In EYFS, children will read their home reading book with the teacher during the morning session to ensure they are secure with this set of sounds. In KS2 children complete ‘whole class’ guided reading with the teacher modelling the skills needed to accurately comprehend a text. Whilst children complete their comprehensions, the teacher may take a small group to read individually (please see Guided Reading Policy for further details)
•  Book Club – In order to help children develop a love for reading and to read for pleasure, Book Club will take place at the beginning of the afternoon session. In this time, children in KS1 and KS2 will be read to from either the Guided Reading book or the Class Novel. This allows pupils to view this book both from a critical and analytical standpoint, but also from a more informal and relaxed standpoint. The Class Novels and Guided Reading texts will be accessible all year for children to go back to. If children express a particular interest in an author, genre or text type, then the upmost will be done to provide them with appropriate books to read for pleasure.
• Each child in school will be provided with a reading book matched to their level of ability. These books match the phonics taught in KS1 and are a direct reflection of their ability in KS2. The children must read every night for a minimum of 15 minutes and a parental signature provided in the home school diary to acknowledge the reading has taken place. In KS2 a comprehension task must be completed, which is available on the school’s website and should be submitted via classdojo. The children must bring their reading books into school every week on a Thursday so that they can be changed the following Friday. It is important the children read and re-read their book in order to thoroughly comprehend the text.
• If children consistently fail to produce their reading book and diary then the procedure is as follows:

Procedure for lack of engagement:

Step 1 – dojo message regarding school’s ability to check diaries.

Step 2 – Following day – no book – speak (in person/phone call) to parents face to face.

Step 3 – J.A. to contact parents directly regarding engagement of reading.

Spelling

At Easington Church of England Primary, spelling is of the utmost importance, which is why we use ‘Spelling Shed’ to ensure thorough coverage.  The ‘spelling rationale’ documents stipulates the year group specific requirements for spelling and the spelling rules etc to be taught (please refer to this document for the specific requirements for each year group).  It is an expectation that the spelling sessions are completed each week with a ‘hot hive’ being completed each week.

Basic Skills

Basic Skills will be utilised to address any gaps in knowledge that become apparent from AfL and any formal assessments that take place and as such, is of vital importance. Initially, Basic Skills will be used to address any gaps in knowledge from the previous year e.g. this may be based on an element of GPS, phonics, reading, applying a spelling rule etc.  This should be specific to the needs of individual cohorts and be determined by ongoing AfL carried out by the class teacher.  The children will have a Basic Skills exercise book in order to complete work which can be marked an assessed following the guidance set out in the Marking and Feedback policy (verbal feedback and marking at the point of learning will be crucial to ensure that this time is maximised for the benefit of the children).  Staff need to ensure that this time is utilised as efficiently as possible and SLT will monitor the impact of these sessions across the academic year.

Curriculum Impact

The work completed in exercise books on a daily basis is the main source of evidence a class teacher will use when making assessment judgements. This is why we tell our children that every day counts and every piece of work in their book needs to be their absolute best. Children complete an independent piece of writing at the end of every two-week unit. This writing is marked by teachers against a set criterion which then indicates whether the piece of writing produced is Below, At or Higher Standard within each year group. Teachers refer to these when making an assessment judgement at the end of each term and end of year.

Please see below further information regarding our English curriculum: