Intent
At Dallington C of E Primary School we believe that a high-quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We aim to inspire an appreciation and love for a wide range of texts. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing; can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We strive to develop language rich classrooms with vocabulary at their heart. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning, not just in English but across the curriculum.
Implementation
We recognise the importance that a successful English curriculum has on all aspects of the curriculum. We believe that a secure foundation in literacy skills will enable a natural progression as children advance through the primary curriculum and beyond.
Whole School Progression of Skills and Phonics Progression EYFS/KS1
At Dallington C of E Primary School, following the National Curriculum 2014, we carefully plan for the progression of skills in English – broken down into: spoken language, reading, writing (with spellings) and grammar.
We also have a further break down of Phonics progression for EYFS and KS1. We follow the Twinkl scheme to plan and teach phonics systematically.
Drawing Club
In Early Years the children experience English through The Drawing Club approach. This allows the children to have continuous provision as well as having dedicated teaching time with an adult. The activities are clearly planned and structured to support the needs of the cohort and its individuals.
The Write stuff Approach
As a school, we have adopted the Write Stuff Approach in KS2. This not only give us a clear and structured overview of skills and coverage across the English curriculum but also provides a highly motivating, pacey and well taught combination of writing, grammar and vocabulary. The improvements in children’s word choices and sentence structures since beginning this programme have been excellent and as we continue to gain experience and knowledge amongst both the staff and children, we are seeing increasing improvements in our writing.
Reading
Reading is at the heart of our curriculum. We have an excellent library facility in school, which the older children help to maintain and manage. All English work is linked to high quality texts and children are encouraged to read daily. All reading is respected and encouraged and we offer children a range of text types, including magazines, newspapers, non – fiction, classical and modern children’s literature. We raise the profile of reading to ensure we share the importance of reading with our parents, carers and wider community.
Each week the children are taught reading skills to help them not only decode the texts that they encounter but also to understand and appreciate them. These sessions also involve lots of opportunity to develop discussion and opinion around books and help to improve children’s speaking and listening skills as well.
Impact
We measure the effectiveness and impact of our English, Writing and Reading curriculum in a variety of different ways. We use National and summative testing to assess pupils’ outcomes for Reading and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling as part of the Statutory Assessment Tests (SATs for Year 6 pupils).
Reading
We complete termly Reading comprehension assessments from the NfER which allows us to ensure pupils are working within their year group and understand the reading for their age. In addition, we complete fluency and accuracy assessments termly to indicate the children who need to improve their reading stamina.
This information is used to assess progress and to pinpoint children who are working below their chronological age and put in place strategies to support them.
Spelling
We use the HAST assessment for spelling to track our children’s progress and the impact of our spelling teaching. This will give us clear progression data and highlight any children that may need additional support.
Writing
Additionally, we have recently revamped our writing assessment to fit with The Write Stuff approach. The pupils complete independent writing assessments after each unit of work. This is used to inform teachers of pupils’ next steps and successes. We have a robust system of internal moderation and external moderation where appropriate to assess progress in writing. The impact of the curriculum can be seen through pupils’ national assessment results.
Through lesson and pupils’ book monitoring, it is evident that pupils are being well supported to acquire the necessary skills and subject knowledge in order to become established and confident readers and writers and work monitored in books demonstrates that the curriculum is taught at an age-appropriate standard across each year group, with additional opportunities planned for pupils to demonstrate their ability to work at a higher standard. Lesson observations demonstrate that learning is being broken down into smaller steps and modelling supports pupils in the writing process/reading skills process – ensuring that the subject as a whole is regularly being reviewed to ensure learning is being embedded into pupils’ long-term memory.
The data we collect shows good progress throughout the school as well as highlighting children who require intervention. We are strong believers in keep up not catch up and endeavour to support children with same day intervention where possible.
The impact of our writing, grammar, spelling and punctuation curriculum can also be measured through pupil voice and talking to the children about their own learning. Pupil voice indicates that the children are enjoying their learning and can talk about the subject and curriculum opportunities. Furthermore, the children leave Dallington as creative and curious thinkers who have experienced a rich and wide range of texts and are ready to learn and explore more about the world.
