Literacy

Intent

Our aim is to provide an English Curriculum that fosters children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. Our intention is to provide an exciting, relevant, culturally diverse and inclusive English Curriculum that develops a strong learning foundation for all children to acquire the knowledge and skills to read, write and speak with confidence, fluency and understanding. We strive to provide opportunities for all our children to develop as independent learners, self-evaluate and make connections. We promote and develop literacy skills and vocabulary through all the other areas of the curriculum. We encourage our children to be the best that they can be in order to have a love of literacy.

Implementation

Our English curriculum provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is followed in Nursery and Reception and the children learn through play, speaking and listening activities, teacher modelling, group work and self-direction.

Objectives are taken from the National Curriculum to teach English in KS1. English is delivered as a discreet subject with lessons planned within a secure teaching sequence using a variety of quality texts, often linked to our children’s cultural backgrounds, to motivate and inspire, as a starting point to develop the children’s speaking and listening, reading and writing skills. Within this teaching sequence children experience grammar and punctuation lessons.  This will then lead to a piece of writing where the children write for a longer period of time using the grammar and punctuation they have been practising throughout the teaching sequence.  Teachers model writing skills on a daily basis.  The skills of planning, editing and publishing are taught as part of the teaching sequence. 

The children are presented with differentiated challenges in each lesson. They have ownership of which they choose each lesson, sometimes with guidance from an adult.

We acknowledge that we all learn in different ways and we recognise the need to develop activities which enable all children to learn in ways which suit them. 

Planned learning activities could include:

• open ended tasks;
• visual resources and artefacts
• group work, paired work and independent work;
• effective questioning;
• talking partners and role play;
• use of IT;
• visitors and educational visits;
• creative activities,
• research and finding out, with access to a range of resources;
• homework;

Our learning environments are tailored to meet the needs of the class. Each class has a working wall with vocabulary, examples of children’s work, children’s voice and visual reminders, to support children’s learning.  There are also standing desks for children to use, especially for those who find sitting at a table for a longer periods of time more difficult.

Alongside this, children experience separate lessons in handwriting. A handwriting session is taught for 30 minutes per week in Y2, 20 minutes per week in Year 1 and modelled to the children when teaching all areas of the curriculum. Children are supported with handwriting on a 1:1 basis in Reception. Handwriting of the letter sound the children are learning will also be explicitly modelled by the adult teaching the sound. Key Stage 1 children have separate handwriting books/folders and are expected to apply taught joins into their daily writing.

Children receive regular feedback from adults on how to improve their writing and individual targets are identified and shared with the children.  Progress towards them is regularly reviewed and a new target given once achieved.

We love to celebrate success of all learners and strive to help all children achieve their potential. Children’s writing can be seen all around the school and a ‘Star Writer’ display showcases children’s writing success which is acknowledged in our weekly Golden Assembly too. Reading is celebrated in classrooms and around school at Elmwood Infant School, where our bright and colourful displays celebrate children’s and adult’s favourite books.

Reading sessions take place three times per week (please see reading and phonic implementation statement).

Reading for pleasure is promoted throughout the school. Adults read daily to their class outside of the English lesson promoting a range of texts to engage all children, in many cases links will be made by the teacher to the topic being studied in other curriculum areas. Each class has a book area and the children have the opportunity to visit the school library.

All children take home learning to read phonetically decodable books in accordance with the phonic phase they are secure in. At the same time, we provide books for the children to choose and take home daily to ensure that they read for pleasure and foster a love of reading.

Impact

We strive to ensure that our children’s attainment will be at least in line with national expectations or they will make at least good progress from their starting point in Nursery or Reception and that some of our children will attain Greater Depth in Reading and Writing by the end of Year 2.  We intend the impact of our English curriculum will ensure our pupils are academically prepared for life beyond Elmwood Infant School.

The impact of our English curriculum will inspire all children to enjoy reading regularly, for information and for enjoyment where they can discuss books with excitement and interest. It’s impact will inspire children to write and to use the features of different genres and styles that are age appropriate by the end of KS1. Children will be proud of their writing and form their letters in a clear, legible way and will join some letters by the end of Year 2. They will be able to write for different purposes and audiences and enjoy using the adventurous vocabulary choices they have learnt. Pupils will respond to feedback and see it as a positive way to improve their work and will be aware of and use classroom resources independently to support their learning. They will remember their learning, transfer skills they have learnt and make connections with other areas of the curriculum.

The children will be confident, fluent speakers who will express preferences and give opinions, showing their understanding.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods;

• English Subject Leader monitoring of books and learning journals
• Moderation of books and learning journals
• English Subject Leader learning walks, including use of displays
• Professional dialogue with teachers, including sharing of best practice
• Reading and Writing assessment sheets
• Use of pupil voice

The progress of children in the Foundation Stage is assessed termly using the Communication and Language and Literacy statements and their progress is tracked using the Otrack system.