English

Reading and writing are taught and learnt through meaningful and effective contexts using a range of approaches.  All writing stems from the key experiences that are provided during each term’s theme and this dovetails with the principles of our experiential curriculum.

These include:

• Sounds Write Phonics
• Shared and guided reading
• Complementary sentence and word-level activities
• Modelled and shared writing
• Guided writing
• Independent or paired writing
• Sharing and reflecting on their writing through assessment for learning strategies
• Talking Partners  
• Talk for writing

Writing in EYFS

Writing is initially taught through the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics, which is supported through Sounds Write.

In the Early Years, children are encouraged to attempt their own emergent writing and their efforts are valued and praised. As their phonic knowledge increases, this will be reflected in their writing. At the same time, their knowledge of key words and sentence construction is supported through reading and writing activities, including shared reading and writing, independent writing, Talk for Writing and Talk Boost.

Writing in Key Stage One and Two

We use a range of teaching approaches to help develop children’s writing, including:

• Modelled, shared and guided writing
• Independent or paired writing
• Peer and self-assessment against success criteria
• Continual opportunities for oral rehearsal of sentences and texts
• Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation activities, taught both discretely and as part of writing units

Our curriculum coverage follows the National Curriculum 2014 and ensures that a range of text types are taught from Years 1 to 6.  During each term, we teach poetry, non-fiction and narrative text types – please see the curriculum coverage document for more information on this.  Oral rehearsal strategies are used regularly, particularly in the younger year groups, as we strongly believe, “If you can say it, you can write it.”  In order to improve language and communication, Talk Boost is used as an intervention where necessary.  Alongside explicit English lessons, we include additional writing experiences where they link to our current theme and children also have the opportunity to write independently through our integrated approaches at the end of every term.

Grammar, punctuation and spelling

Please see the curriculum overview for GPS coverage by year group.  These skills are taught discretely as well as embedded into writing units.

Year Group Objectives for writing are available to read below... 

Year 1 Writing Objectives             

Year 2 Writing Objectives            

Year 3 Writing Objectives            

Year 4 Writing Objectives            

Year 5 Writing Objectives            

Year 6 Writing Objectives     

The National Curriculum Spelling Appendix includes lists of spellings for each year group from Year 1 to Year 6. 

Reading

In EYFS reading is taught, primarily by our Sounds Write Phonics Scheme which is a new scheme that is having a good impact on accelerating progress in phonics. Children then practice their blending and understanding of words through our Project X books and oxford reading scheme. We place a great emphasis on 1:1 reading and aim to listen to our children read every week on a 1:1 basis.

From Year 1 to Year 6 children are taught to read and comprehend (reading for meaning) through;

Independent reading and tasks

Guided reading

Whole Class Shared reading and comprehension

Our reading scheme Project X

Reading Classics

If children enter the school with gaps in their phonics knowledge they are given extra opportunities through additional phonic lessons.

Handwriting

We teach a cursive style of handwriting using the system Letterjoin.  Our current handwriting policy, which is in line with recommendations from the British Dyslexia Association, can be found here.

Year Group Objectives for reading are available to read below... 

Reading Objectives in year groups

Cheltenham Ladies College students volunteer at our school, listening to children read.