INTENT

English develops all children’s ability to speak, read and write for a range of purposes. Through the study of a broad, flexible and exciting curriculum, we empower the children’s curiosity and inspire them to be creative writers in a progressive curriculum which is relevant for now and the future.  Our curriculum is carefully constructed with a holistic approach to ensure culture awareness and positive mental health where we make links and are flexible to the needs and interests of all our children.  We aim to stimulate the children’s imaginations using first hand experiences with broad and exciting stimulus to read and write by making carefully considered wider curriculum links and showing cultural awareness.  Through reading children can build on what they already know acquiring new knowledge, gaining a wider understanding of the world.

At Greenmeadow, we teach writing to:

• Present yourself confidently to, and within, the wider world
• Express yourself actively, effectively and efficiently
• Communicate with others
• Encourage imagination and creativity
• Express opinions, viewpoints, emotional range and character
• Chronicle the past, contribute to the future and construct the future
• Imitate styles, voices and vocabulary choices and expand our own versions through the writing process
• Expand skills and knowledge to apply in everyday life, opening doors of opportunities
• Escape , enjoy, form friends, question and explore

At Greenmeadow, we teach reading to:

• Learn from the past and help form and create the future
• Make choices and open doors of opportunities
• Foster imagination and creativity
• Make sense of, and engage with the wider world
• Grow as a person through building character, emotional range and viewpoints
• Expand your skills and knowledge to apply in everyday life
• Develop the language and vocabulary to express thoughts and opinions
• Escape , enjoy, form friends, question and explore

IMPLEMENTATION

Reading

Early reading development is carefully structured through fidelity to the Little Wandle phonics programme which is then adapted to provide interventions throughout the whole school appropriate to the needs of individual pupils.  Training and development of staff is central to our reading programme to ensure staff have the skills to run effective interventions that are reviewed and assessed on a 3 weekly cycle which ensures the provision of relevant and targeted support. 

Teaching of reading is fundamental at Greenmeadow with a clear focus on reading for pleasure and a structured reading approach. 

Teaching of Reading

The teaching of reading starts with children reading wordless books, where children develop a sense of story through verbalising their observations in pictures.  From week 4 in FS2, children start the Little Wandle reading programme, where they read books matched to their phonic level in small groups with a trained professional 3x a week.  This continues into year 1 and term 1 of year 2 until the children are fluent at decoding and ready to progress onto the Little Wandle Fluency reading programme.   Children in year 2 work through the fluency programme following the same structured approach where they read 3x a week with a trained professional.  In year 2 we also phase in the VIPERS reading approach 2x a week, where we cover a wide range of non-fiction, fiction and poetry texts linked to the wider curriculum.  This is in readiness for KS2 where whole class VIPERS is taught daily.  The VIPERS acronym stands for:

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explain

Retrieval

Summarise

Reading for Pleasure

As part of our whole school love of reading, every class has a timetabled library slot, where reading for pleasure is central to developing children’s curiosities to read a wider variety of books from a range of authors from varying ethnicities and cultures.  We also have a central whole school display of books being shared in each class which stimulate conversations between pupils and staff promote book talk.

We have carefully planned book corners which are inviting and stimulating for children to explore a range of text types and where possible links to the topics being taught in the wider curriculum.  We carefully consider book rotations to keep curiosities alive.  We have a termly author focus to expand children’s awareness of a greater range of authors.  We encourage children to make links between books by the same author and the writing styles of different authors.

We have timetabled slots during the week in each class where adults will read to children modelling fluency and prosody.  We encourage choice in reading for pleasure and invite the children to vote on what books they would like to read next whilst exposing them to high quality texts, which also helps children to learn an increasing range of vocabulary which filters through to their writing.  In KS2, staff develop a ‘hook table’ with resources and stimulations linked to the class book which promotes book discussions and values the opinions of pupils.

Every other term, children will have a golden time session focused on reading for pleasure, where children can read in a chosen comfortable environment alone or with friends and book talk and discussion is encouraged through adults modelling and involvement. 

Teaching of Writing

At Greenmeadow, writing is a key part of our wider curriculum where key skills are reinforced and refined rather than considering writing as a discreet subject.  Progression in writing lessons provides cross-curricular links and writing is embedded into topic lessons, which provides children with a real purpose and audience and further context for their learning.  A unit of writing would last between 2 & 3 weeks in a term with 2 or 3 writing genres taught over a term, dependent on the length of individual terms. 

A typical unit plan would follow this structure.

• Sharing the purpose and audience for writing. Identifying the key features of a genre and sharing good examples.
• Key skills with clear and discreet grammar and or composition objectives that are modelled and applied through a sequence of lessons.
• Slow writes are used as an opportunity to write a text in the genre studied in a supported and scaffolded format linked to the needs of the child. Independence develops as the scaffolds for learning are slowly withdrawn as appropriate.
• Editing and redrafting to improve is a process used throughout a unit of writing where we teach the independence of checking spelling and grammar, making additions or reductions to improve the flow of writing and rewriting sections to improve the quality of the wider text.
• Planning is carefully thought out in a systematic way to ensure all aspects of the writing is considered to enable the children to write in a style where the high standards are maintained throughout the text.
• Independent writing is where children apply all of their knowledge and learning in a text which has a real purpose to inspire high standards of writing. In some cases work is published.

Assessment for learning is a daily feature in lessons, where adults will enable children to improve through guidance in the moment and constructive feedback both verbal and written to support children’s progress in the text type.  Reasoning stickers are used in Key Stage 2 where children are encouraged to think deeply about a key skill being applied in their genre of writing. 

IMPACT

We aim for:

• Children to be confident and enthusiastic readers and writers who are keen to further their English skills.
• Children to have a love of reading, with frequent reading both at home and in school.
• Children to have a secure understanding of letters and sounds and apply this to their reading and writing.
• Children to use a rich repertoire of vocabulary through exposure in high quality texts and teacher models and apply this in their own work.
• Children to be creative and curious to explore new learning and skills that deepens their understanding.
• Children to have automaticity in handwriting and spelling to enable quality cross-curricular writing which enables the children to apply their skills through a variety of text types and to consider the purpose and audience, adapting their writing appropriately.
• Children will see themselves as readers, writers and confident communicators, who also listen respectfully and explain with clarity and confidence.

 Spelling Resources

 BELOW ARE THE COMPLETE SPELLINGS FOR EACH YEAR GROUP

Reception Spelling Program 

Year 1 Spelling Program

Year 2 Spelling Overview - The bridge between Phonics and Spelling

 Year 3 Spelling Program

 Year 4 Spelling Program

 Year 5 Spelling Program

 Year 6 Spelling Program

Please find below the English Learning Progressions

Reading Comprehension Learning Progression

Writing Learning Progression