English

The English Curriculum

English intent at Rolls Crescent

Our intent for each of our children is based upon the need for them to enter the world of work as articulate and literate individuals with a strong love of reading and writing. We recognise the responsibility for children to leave Rolls Crescent and begin high school having mastered the key skills of speaking and listening, reading and writing. We want our children to be resilient readers and writers with an ambitious curiosity about language and vocabulary.

Phonics and Early Reading

At Rolls Crescent Primary School, our vision and intent is for all children to become fluent, resilient readers and writer. 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 Nursery and follow a progression to ensure that children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through the school. We value reading as a crucial life skill and by the time our children leave us, we aim for confident readers who read for meaning and pleasure. Our readers are equipped with skills to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader 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.

In nursery, our children begin a phonetic journey with ‘Foundations to Phonics’, which starts with environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body percussion and voice sounds. We provide a balance of chid-led and adult-led experiences for all children to meet the curriculum expectations 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 attention to high-quality language. We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Children in Reception and key stage 1 receive daily phonics lessons which are progressive and build on previous learning. In Reception, we build up from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson (20 minutes) 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 with teaching beginning in Week 2 of the Autumn term. 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 Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy. In Year 2 phonics is taught up until the end of Autumn 2. At the end of Year 1 we check for gaps in learning and reteach all gaps in Year 2. Children in year 2 are taught a 30-minute lesson each day. At the end of Autumn 2 all children are re-assessed using the Little Wandle assessment and the fluency assessments. Any children who need more phonics support will get this through intervention and rapid catch-up teaching.

We assess and track our children’s phonics progress meticulously and Daily Keep-up sessions 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. We use the Rapid Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace. These short, sharp lessons, last 10 minutes, occur on a daily basis and are designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions. These Reading practice sessions take place three times a week. are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children and we use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids. 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 and comprehension.

The decodable reading practice book is then taken home to ensure success is shared with the family and children can develop their fluency further at home. Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents/carers to share and read to the 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.

Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations 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.

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002) ‘This will influence 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 Rolls Crescent and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures. In Nursery, Reception and Key Stage 1, children have access to the reading corner every day and the books are continually refreshed. Children from Nursery/Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school. Each class visits the local library regularly. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).

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 daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support and 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 completed 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. The Reading Leader scrutinises the data 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. Children receiving additional support are monitored even more regularly to ensure we are closing their gaps effectively.

Fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used in Year 1, when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books, and 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. We also use the fluency assessments 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 ready any more fully decodable books. A placement assessment is used 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 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.

Children in Year 1 take the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-take it in Year 2. Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriate teaching. The Rapid Catch-up summative assessments are used to assess progress and inform teaching. The Rapid Catch-up fluency assessments are used 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

For our children, competence in reading is the key to independent learning and has a direct effect on progress in all other areas of the curriculum. We want our children to read for pleasure and be ‘readers for meaning’, not just children who can read and in accordance with EEF guidance reports. We teach reading comprehension strategies and through this, develop language and vocabulary. We will ensure that all children have equal access to the curriculum, regardless of gender, race, religion or ability. Children with specific reading, speech and language or hearing difficulties will be identified and supported through support programmes in school and external help will be sought when necessary. Reading is inclusive for all pupils regardless of individual starting points and barriers.

In Key Stage Two, children in Year 3 who do not pass the phonics screening check, receive daily phonics to ensure they can access all parts of the curriculum. Those children who pass the phonics screen participate in the Little Wandle Fluency programme which has 60 inspirational books written by well-known authors. These books have been designed to teach all aspects of reading and help all children become readers for life! The children read aloud in every lesson and are taught prosody and practise repeated reading. Comprehension is taught using a dialogic talk model so that children can enjoy discussing what they have read and link it to their experiences. Once children have graduated from the Little Wandle main programme with a reading speed of at least 60 words per minute and an accuracy rate of 90%+, children begin to read Fluency 1 books. In Year 4, children are benchmarked using the Little Wandle Fluency Assessment and those children who can read at a speed of 95 words per minute or higher, with a 92%+ accuracy, progress to whole class guided reading using an inference training model. Targeted questioning by the teacher encourages children to 'read between the lines' at their level. Children are challenged to generate their own questions throughout texts. Children are heard read frequently by adults in school and also read a variety of texts across the curriculum. They also access Read Theory (an online, diagnostic reading programme) to facilitate and support reading at home and further develop reading comprehension.

Reading is assessed during each of the Autumn 2, Spring 2 and Summer 2 terms with a Twinkl standardised reading test adapted for each term and individual year groups. Each test is designed to meet the national curriculum test framework, including a variety of practice reading papers (for terms 1, 2, and 3) that you can use to assess reading comprehension levels across each year group. To make them more engaging, these assessments contain reading texts that cover a range of interesting topics. This helps teachers to identify and address any learning gaps within each class.

Writing

In accordance with the EEF Guidance reports, our writing curriculum is built around ambitious texts and units of work which develop vocabulary, speaking and listening, and writing skills through a mastery approach. From EYFS through to Year 6, we engage the children in effective writing through consideration of purpose and audience. We teach our children to select and use different strategies with increasing levels of independence. In EYFS children are given opportunities to orally rehearse and write formally and in play. As writing skills develop, we plan and teach it as a process of planning, drafting, revising and editing - after evaluation of their own or a peer’s work. Children learn the features and conventions of different genres and this is supported by the selected texts, wider reading and the application of writing skills in other curriculum areas. Teachers are trained in effective vocabulary teaching using the Word Aware approach across all subject areas.

Children are taught spelling and handwriting using a DFE approved systematic scheme. The Superhero Spelling Programme helps children learn key spelling rules and concepts, allowing them to practise all the statutory words for their year group. Each lesson consists of three phases: Learn (where the spelling words or rules are introduced), Build (where the main spelling activity is completed) and Show (where spelling words in integrated into dictation sentences).

Explicit letter formation and handwriting is taught in Key Stage One using Pen Pals and in Key Stage Two, children are taught and encouraged to practise cursive letter formation and handwriting at the back of their English book prior to the commencement of English lessons.

Writing is constantly assessed by class teachers with termly moderations with phase leaders or senior leaders to discuss the progress of individual pupils.

Oracy

Children are provided opportunities to develop their confidence with spoken language directed to a variety of audiences through a range of activities across the curriculum including guided play, drama, assemblies, performance poetry and different types of class discussion. Our oracy curriculum is delivered helping children to understand all of the skills (physical, cognitive, linguistic and social and emotional) required to speak and listen effectively.

Useful links

The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home.

Little Wandle - Phonics resources for parents and carers