Intent

At Campton Academy, English and the teaching of English is embedded across the curriculum. Our aim is to ensure that every child progresses in the areas of reading, writing and speaking and listening. We believe in supporting our children to love reading and writing and want to inspire children to be confident in the arts of speaking and listening and to be able to use discussion to develop their learning. 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 believe in setting high standards in the presentation of writing along with setting the important foundations in spelling and grammar. We aim to inspire children in their writing by providing opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum. We value reading as a key life skill and we are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We believe that through supporting our children to learn to read, they will be able to read to learn for the rest of their lives. Reading is key for academic success. We believe in developing reading fluency and all comprehension skills coupled with promoting a love of reading so all of our children can access the delights and rewards that reading provides.

 

Implementation

The implementation and teaching of English is structured around the National Curriculum and the Early Learning Goals (EYFS). Our aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum.  In order to help develop confident, enthusiastic writers who can express themselves in a variety of different contexts, our writing is often cross-curricular and linked to class topics. This provides our children with regular opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences. Meaningful writing tasks are specific and can be applied to real life contexts.

 

Speaking and Listening

At Campton Academy we continually seek to support and promote pupils’ confidence and competence in spoken language. Fluency in spoken language enables children to express their ideas and feelings, discuss and understand new ideas and underpins the development of reading and writing.

Wherever possible, we aim to use interactive teaching strategies to engage all pupils to practise their speaking and listening skills in a range of situations. In lessons across the curriculum, children regularly use talking partners and discussion groups to progress their understanding and learning and children in KS1 participate in weekly Show and Tell sessions.  All adults in school model spoken language and encourage children to speak in full sentences at all times.

 

Reading

The opportunities, organisation and provision for the teaching and learning of reading are as follows:

Learning to read

Through EYFS and KS1 children are taught to read phonics sounds following the ELS scheme and this progresses into KS2 for some pupils.  See separate guidance for the teaching of reading in EYFS for more details.  Our reading book scheme at Campton is comprised of books from the Oxford Reading Tree series and phonics books from the Dandelion Readers scheme.  Comprehension skills are also taught through whole class texts and guided reading sessions.

Phonics

Phonics is taught through Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) and is taught daily to all children in EYFS and KS1, and where necessary in KS2.  Resources from the Letters and Sounds scheme are also used made use of for some whole class teaching and intervention sessions.

Independent Reading

Children have a variety of opportunities to read silently during specific times within class. Each classroom has a wide selection of age appropriate fiction and non-fiction books the children are free to choose from.  Each class also visits the school library to provide an opportunity to change their library books on a weekly basis. Their reading in recorded in their Reading Record books.

Reading to Children and Hearing Children Read

Teachers read a wide range of picture books, non-fiction texts and novels in class to model reading for pleasure. Teachers, teaching assistants and volunteers regularly hear children read and every opportunity is taken to provide additional 1:1 reading for those children in need of additional intervention.

Reading Engagement

Positive engagement with reading in encouraged throughout the school.  Children in Years 2-4 are encouraged to read as often as possible at home through the use of various age-appropriate reading reward schemes.  Certificates for reading engagement and progress are presented in whole school assemblies and displays in school celebrate reading.  National Book Day is celebrated as ‘Book Week’ in Campton and a wide range of engaging activities are planned.

Reading Buddies

During the Summer Term, children from KS2 pair weekly with children from Early Years and KS1 to hear them read and share enjoyment of texts.

Reading Interventions

A range of interventions are used to ensure that all children leave Campton Academy as fluent readers.  These include additional 1:1 reading sessions, targeted phonics support, additional guided reading sessions to develop comprehension and use of the Nessy Learning Programme.

 

Communication with Parents

Each child has a Reading Record book which logs the books which they have read and comments on their reading. Parents and teaching staff write in this book. Children are encouraged to read at home every day and reading records are checked in school to see that this has occurred.  Parents in EYFS are provided with clear guidance on how best to support the start of their child’s reading journey.

 

Writing

English lessons are taught in mixed ability groups for at least an hour each day. We have a literature led curriculum where high quality texts or extracts from texts are used as a stimulus for quality writing. The teaching of writing includes learning about writing for different purposes and audiences, thus, enabling the children to write fluently in a variety of styles. Writing lessons also include the technical aspects of spelling, grammar and punctuation required by the National Curriculum. Application of writing skills is seen in all areas across the wider curriculum.

 

Phonics/Spellings

In KS1, phonics is taught daily in 20 minute sessions following the ELS scheme. Alongside this, pupils learn Common Exception words for their year group.  Year 1 learn and practise the Common Exception words in class and Year 2 progress to learning their Common Exception words in class and as part of their homework.

In KS2, spelling is taught in class and as part of their homework.  Words from the Year 3 and 4 Statutory Word List are taught, as well as the required prefixes and suffices from the National Curriculum.

 

Grammar

Grammar is taught discretely as well as being embedded through the text being studied. This develops the children’s composition skills and focuses on sentence organisation, vocabulary and punctuation.

 

Termly Unaided Writing Challenge

Across the school the children undergo a termly writing challenge, providing the whole school with a purpose and audience. This allows the children to show their writing skills and put what they have learned into practice whilst showing the progression of writing skills.  The resulting writing from each year group is then used in moderation exercises by the teachers.

 

Handwriting

The school has adopted a cursive handwriting script, starting from EYFS, and this is taught and reinforced regularly within children’s school books and also through discrete handwriting sessions. Children in Early Years begin to form letters using pre-cursive print.

 

Marking - Work is marked and assessed in line with the Feedback and Marking Policy.

 

Writing Celebrations

Children’s writing is celebrated during our weekly Celebration Assemblies and we also celebrate children’s work in classrooms. During our annually hosted book week, we aim to invite an expert author or illustrator into school to share their texts and host writing workshops for children to engage in.  Children’s writing is also shared regularly with their adults at home through images being posted on the children’s journals on SeeSaw.

 

Assessment

Reading and writing are carefully assessed and moderated by teachers, as well as part of whole staff development during INSET. Opportunities to moderate children’s reading and writing with other local schools is also regularly taken.  Children in Year 1 take the statutory Phonics Screening Check.  Children in Year 2 undergo national statutory assessments towards the end of the academic year and writing is teacher assessed against the End of Key Stage 1 Teacher Assessment Frameworks.  The findings of the teacher assessments are used to inform planning to help the teaching and learning process. Teachers assess reading and writing half-termly to enable early intervention where a child is not achieving age related expectations.

 

Impact

• Our pupils enjoy reading and are exposed to a broad range of texts and authors.
• Successful readers are nurtured through the good teaching of both language comprehension and word reading.
• Pupils have a good range of vocabulary that they are able to apply in their writing.
• Pupils have a good knowledge of how to adapt their writing for different purposes and audiences.
• Pupils have a solid foundation in spelling and have a toolkit of different strategies to support the continual learning of their spelling after they leave us.
• Pupils are able to identify, use and apply grammatical features in their writing effectively across the curriculum.
• In KS1, pupils achieve above national and local averages in reading and writing both at and above age related expectations and at greater depth.
• In KS2 (Year 4), pupils achieve above local averages in reading and writing both at and above age related expectations and at greater depth.
• Children are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas.
• We have a community of enthusiastic and engaged readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their literacy skills and who we hope will carry forward the high aspirations and creativity that has been encouraged at Campton as they move forward in their education.