English

Intent 

At Chaddleworth St Andrew’s and Shefford Federated Primary Schools, we are determined to support all pupils to become fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts. Through choosing high quality texts, we want all pupils to develop a love of reading and have a good knowledge of a range of authors and poets. We want our children to be able to understand more about the world in which they live, through the knowledge they gain from texts. We want our children to call on our school Christian Value of Courage, to explore genres that are new to them, to have the confidence to broaden their reading horizons and to experience rich, challenging and thought provoking texts.

We are committed to ensuring that all children, through the delivery of our systematic synthetic phonics programme, have the skills they need in early reading to decode and blend words, in order to be able to read fluently with an understanding of what they have read. 

When children leave our school, we aspire for them to be avid readers who have established the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and information. We expect our pupils to be equipped with the skills and knowledge to be able to access any subject in their forthcoming secondary education and into their adult life.

Implementation 

Early Reading / Teaching Time / Phonics

Early reading is supported through the daily teaching of phonics across the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. We follow the phased structure of ‘Flying Start with Letters and Sounds’. This systematic synthetic phonics programme has been developed by lead school improvement professionals and practitioners in West Berkshire. The programme aligns with Letters and Sounds and is a comprehensive programme to support children in becoming fluent readers.

Phonics sessions are taught separately for each year group. Children receive a 20-30 minute phonics session each day.  Within the sessions, children learn to blend sounds and segment words into sounds for reading and spelling. We use the Rising Stars Reading Planet scheme and books are closely matched to the child’s phonics learning. Sessions are multi-sensory and active and allow the children to consolidate their learning as well as learning new sounds and skills.

Alongside the teaching of letter sounds, children are taught ‘tricky’ words for each phonic phase. At the end of each half term, children are assessed to check that they are confident with the sounds they have covered before moving on to the next set of sounds.

If necessary, children continue with Phonics sessions in Year 3 and beyond until they are fluent readers.

Parents are also invited to the ‘parent phonic meetings’ to learn more about the way that we teach phonics.

Phonics: Key Stage 2 and SEND provision

We continue to teach phonics to pupils who are not yet able to read fluently. We do this through small group learning with a teacher or TA, and where a pupil has a particular need, we arrange for the Cognition and Learning Team to complete an assessment which results in a bespoke programme of learning that a teacher or TA then follows. In some instances, pupils in Year 4 who are continuing to find the learning of phonics challenging, the SENCo will apply for a place on the Language and Literacy programme. The Language and Literacy programme is run by a specialist teacher and requires fortnightly attendance at The Winchcombe and daily practise of the skills/knowledge taught. Precision teaching is the primary teaching approach for children with SEND who require overlearning and regular opportunities to practise skills.

Reading Comprehension

At Chaddleworth St Andrew’s and Shefford C.E. Federated Primary Schools, we define reading comprehension as the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to:

• decode what they read;
• make connections between what they read and what they already know;
• think deeply about what they have read

Comprehension skills are developed in reading sessions through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction within English lessons. Within guided reading and English, children read widely a range of fiction and non-fiction texts to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum.

We use the VIPERS acronym to recall the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand to improve their comprehension of texts.

• Vocabulary
• Inference
• Predict
• Explain
• Retrieve
• Summarise

Oracy is prioritised in our curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum. Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful readers.

Throughout the school, we carefully select quality class texts to ensure that children are exposed to the best in children’s literature so that they can develop a love of reading. Texts are planned for and embedded into all curriculum areas and are used to enhance and support subject teaching. Texts are selected based on children’s interests, themes and specifically chosen to broaden children’s ranges, language and understanding and to expose the class to books that they might not select from the shelves themselves.

Our Reading Champions (pupil voice) recommend books and encourage others to read these books.

Assessment

Formative assessment and summative assessment:

• Formative (Assessment FOR learning - AfL): ongoing assessment of how children are learning, undertaken by the teacher during the course of the learning process.
• Summative (Assessment OF learning): This is the assessment of learning that takes place after the learning process, in order to measure how effective the learning has been.

These assessments will be used to inform teaching in a continuous cycle of planning, teaching and assessing. Ongoing assessments, AFL and mini assessments, will be an informal part of every lesson to check pupils’ understanding and give information, which will help the teacher to adjust day-to-day lesson plans.  

At data entry points throughout the year children’s work will be assessed and a judgement of their progress and attainment will be made in line with ARE. The outcomes will be recorded on a school mark sheet, discussed within Pupil Progress Meetings and analysed for areas of development. Where possible these judgements will be moderated with colleagues and/or the English co-ordinator. 

Towards the end of Year 1, all children take part in a statutory Phonics Screening Check to assess whether they have met the ‘expected level’ for reading using their phonics. This check involves the children reading 40 words (some real words and some ‘nonsense’ words) using the sounds they have learned. Parents are informed of the results and plans are put in place to further support any children who do not meet the threshold, ready for their re-check at the end of Year 2. Pupils who do not pass in Year 2 continue to have intervention and are tested at the end of Year 3. This continues until the pupil has passed the phonics screening test.

During the summer term in Year 2 and Year 6, pupils undertake Statutory Assessment Tests or SATs. Pupils are prepared for these assessments. Year 2 are not made aware of the upcoming SATs and all preparation is done sensitively, so that the pupils do not feel anxious to perform. In Year 6, pupils are prepared for SATs through daily revision so that they know what to expect and feel confident when completing the assessments.

In EYFS, pupils’ reading ability is closely monitored and teacher assessed. In Years 1 – 6, all the pupils complete Rising Stars assessments three times a year. Rising Stars assessments are in the style of SATs papers and allow pupils to experience this type of assessment multiple times before Year 2 and Year 6.  Pupils complete the stage appropriate assessment so if a pupil in Year 4 is working at the stage of a Year 2 pupil, they would complete the Year 2 assessment. All assessments are carried out in a sensitive manner that takes into consideration the self-esteem of pupils. Pupils who are encouraged to use the Christian Values of endurance and courage and if a pupil were anxious, that pupil would have a bespoke arrangement (for example, working 1: 1 with a teaching assistant).

Impact 

We expect that by the end of Year 6 pupils will:

• Have a lifelong love of reading, reading widely and often
• Be equipped with the skills and knowledge to be able to access any subject in their forthcoming secondary school and into adult life
• Have consistently positive attitudes to reading
• Enjoy books and talk with passion about them
• Have experience of a range of authors and poets

Outcomes

At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved at least Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). We expect those children who have not reached Age Related Expectations to have made good progress from their starting point.

Pupil Voice

Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their reading and speak with passion about their love of reading. They can articulate their opinions and express clearly their thoughts and preferences for specific writing styles of authors and poets using accurate vocabulary. They will become reflective readers.

Management of Reading

In order to achieve this the Reading co-ordinator and the Senior Leadership Team take responsibility for the monitoring of the Reading curriculum and the standards achieved by the children. The Reading co-ordinator will monitor for appropriate pitch and progression every term. This monitoring takes the form of one or more of the following:

1. lesson observations and feedback
2. learning walks and pupil voice conversations
3. planning scrutiny followed by support where necessary
4. termly data analysis

Intent

At Chaddleworth and Shefford Schools we believe that all our pupils should be able to communicate effectively through their writing and that is a tool for life. We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. We want them to write clearly, accurately, coherently, and creatively, adapting their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences.

Oracy is prioritised in our writing curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum. Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful in their writing. Our mastery approach for writing aims for all learners to achieve their full potential in writing and we are committed to providing the scaffolds and challenge needed in order for our children to achieve this.

At Chaddleworth and Shefford Schools we aim to:

• Create confident writers who develop endurance and stamina for writing throughout school and are able to write at length.
• For all of our children to be independent writers, building on a range of skills as they work through each journey of writing.
• Use high quality texts that model excellent writing practises across a broad range of genres.
• Develop a secure understanding of the purpose of a text type, the purpose and intended impact of writing skills/tools and the ability to carefully select vocabulary with focus on the desired effect on the readers’ thoughts and feelings so that the impact of their writing is positive.
• Ensure that all pupils know how to plan, practise, evaluate their work as well as carry out an effective edit and improvement process using feedback from the teacher.
• Challenge and encourage our children to take risks and view mistakes as a positive part of the learning process.
• Celebrate writing at each stage through the learning process to encourage children to take pride in their work.
• Provide a balanced and broad curriculum, which encompasses writing practice and equips children with the skills and knowledge of writing processes including handwriting, spelling, grammar, widening vocabulary and writing for different styles.
• Encourage our children to high expectations of themselves where they take pride in all aspects of learning and in everything they produce.

Implementation:

Teaching Time

To provide adequate time for developing writing skills each class teacher will provide a daily writing lesson.  This may vary in length but will usually last for about 50 to 60 minutes.  Spelling sessions are also timetabled daily so that pupils are supported in remembering spelling patterns and rules. Daily opportunities for handwriting practice are timetabled up to Year 2 and beyond for those children who continue to benefit from it. Grammar is taught explicitly and those skills are then applied in writing opportunities. The children are taught to understand the conventions of writing and manipulate language to create effects for the reader. Links, where possible, will also be made to writing within other subjects so pupils can develop and apply their written skills.

We believe that all pupils should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing. From EYFS, children will learn the cursive script and will present their writing in variety of ways and write for a variety of genres for both English lessons and the wider curriculum. Through the Talk4Writing process, children will acquire and learn the skills to plan, draft and refine their written work over time and are encouraged to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing.

Teachers demonstrate high quality modelling within each Writing lesson and encourage children to include key vocabulary, structure their work appropriately into coherent paragraphs and use the grammatical skills and punctuation taught at their year group level.

Planning:

Lessons are planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before. Teachers use the objectives taken from the National Curriculum statutory guidelines and follow Termly Overview and Schemes of work to support their planning.

Progression maps are based on the National Curriculum, using section headings:

• Text structure
• Sentence construction
• Word structure
• Punctuation
• Terminology

Our pupils are exposed to high quality texts and a wide variety of genres in which to apply their writing skills.

Writing across the curriculum

Writing contributes to most subjects within the primary curriculum and opportunities will be sought to give writing experiences out of a wide range of activities. This will allow children to use and apply writing skills in real contexts. These opportunities will be identified in all appropriate schemes of work but other opportunities will be taken as and when they occur.

Resources

Every classroom must use a writing working wall which acts as a writing toolkit, including examples of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary used in a unit of work.

Information and Communication Technology

ICT will be used in various ways to support teaching and motivate children’s learning for example using applications to publish work effectively.

Assessment

Formative assessment and summative assessment:

• Formative (Assessment FOR learning - AfL): ongoing assessment of how children are learning, undertaken by the teacher during the course of the learning process.
• Summative (Assessment OF learning): This is the assessment of learning that takes place after the learning process, in order to measure how effective the learning has been.

These assessments will be used to inform teaching in a continuous cycle of planning, teaching and assessing.

Ongoing assessments, AFL and mini assessments, will be an informal part of every lesson to check pupils’ understanding and give information, which will help the teacher to adjust day-to-day lesson plans.

At data entry points throughout the year children’s work will be assessed and a judgement of their progress and attainment will be made in line with ARE. The outcomes will be recorded on a school mark sheet, discussed within Pupil Progress Meetings and analysed for areas of development. Where possible these judgements will be moderated with colleagues and/or the EnCo.

Teachers will refer to end of year objectives to help inform them of a Teacher Assessment level, using evidence from class work across the curriculum to guide them. Where possible these judgements will be moderated within the school. Accurate information will then be reported to parents and the child’s next teacher and the LA. Analysis of progress will be regularly carried out by the EnCo throughout the year. Where children appear to be making little progress the EnCo will discuss interventions to support the teacher that will help the children to accelerate their learning.

Marking

See the Feedback, Marking and Assessment Policy

Impact:

At Chaddleworth and Shefford Schools we expect that by the end of Year 6 pupils will:

write clearly, accurately, coherently, and creatively
adapt their language and style for a range of meaningful contexts, purposes and audiences
Outcomes:

At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). Children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention.

Pupil voice:

Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their writing and speak about how they love learning writing. They can articulate the context in which writing is being taught using accurate vocabulary.

Monitoring of Writing

In order to achieve this the Writing co-ordinator and the Senior Leadership Team take responsibility for the monitoring of the Writing curriculum and the standards achieved by the children. The Writing co-ordinator will monitor for appropriate pitch and progression every term. This monitoring takes the form of one or more of the following:

1. lesson observations and feedback
2. learning walks and pupil voice conversations
3. planning scrutiny followed by support where necessary
4. book looks on a frequent basis
5. termly data analysis