English
The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
Phonics
At James Watt Primary School, we are determined that every child will learn to read, regardless of background, needs or abilities. We want our children to be fluent, confident readers. Stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction are chosen to develop their vocabulary, language comprehension and a genuine love of reading. We aim to use high quality texts and themes across the curriculum that excite and engage the children. We do not leave the teaching of reading to chance; we deliver daily high-quality phonics lessons that support the development of reading and writing skills. We follow the Bug Club phonics scheme in Early Years and Key Stage One. This is a systematic, synthetic program which enables children to develop the skills necessary to decode and begin to comprehend reading. Children will gain success by progressing through books that are accurately matched and sequenced to the phonic scheme. All children in Reception and Key Stage One read with an adult three times a week. The books provide opportunities for children to apply their phonic knowledge, giving them a purpose and sense of achievement.
Phonics is taught through 6 phases:
Phase 1 - supports the development of spoken language.
Phase 2-5 - is a systematic approach to phonics teaching and word recognition skills.
Phase 6 - focuses on word-specific spellings and the rules for spelling alternatives.
Phonics is taught as a discrete session every day in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Sessions are delivered by the teacher either as a whole class, ability groups or in small groups. Those children, who did not pass the Phonics Check in Year 1, are provided with additional support in Year 2 to ensure they pass the retake.
In KS2, pupils are assessed to identify those who are at risk of failing to read and systematic phonic teaching is provided. The application of taught phonics skills runs throughout the whole curriculum.
Spelling, appropriate to ability and age expectation, is taught in KS2, explicitly for half an hour each week, in line with statutory guidance as outlined in English Appendix 1 - Spelling. The children are taught a range of strategies to enable them to spell words correctly and are encouraged to apply these strategies to their independent writing.
Reading
'From the early years onwards, pupils follow a structured phonics programme. Staff model effective techniques for sounding out and blending words. They check regularly how well pupils are learning and make sure pupils get the support they need to improve. Pupils read daily in school. They take their phonics books home to practise their fluency. They also take home a storybook to encourage a love of reading. Staff provide effective support to pupils who fall behind in the reading programme. This helps pupils to improve their reading fluency and catch up quickly.' Ofsted 2024.
The progressive teaching and regular assessment of phonics and early reading will ensure that all children have built the foundations for developing higher level reading skills in Key Stage Two. Children will leave Key Stage One as enthusiastic readers who will proudly celebrate their successes in reading across the curriculum and beyond the classroom environment.
At James Watt Primary School reading is taught as a separate lesson from writing, although links are always made between both through writers’ purpose. As the children move through the school, they are taught a whole wealth of reading skills such as: summarising, decoding vocabulary, retrieval inference, prediction and authors’ choice of language.
We use a wide selection of challenging texts that are structured in different ways, including fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books. Usually, (particularly in Key Stage 2), one text is used for the whole class. Children read through the text, with the teacher explicitly modelling and teaching ‘reading in the moment’ strategies:
- Visualisation
- Background knowledge
- Inference
- Noticing where breakdown in meaning occurs and reading back or forwards to put the meaning back together
- Ask questions of themselves about what is happening in a text and why
- Prediction
All pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction 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. Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasure-house of wonder and joy for curious young minds.
‘Bug Club’ phonics’ books are used to develop the children’s word reading and comprehension skills in Key Stage One both at school and at home. Accelerated Reader is used to support pupils in reading at home for KS2.
Writing
The programmes of study for writing at key stages 1 and 2 are constructed similarly to those for reading:
- transcription (spelling and handwriting)
- composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing).
It is essential that teaching develops pupils’ competence in these two dimensions. In addition, pupils are taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. These aspects of writing have been incorporated into the programmes of study for composition.
At James Watt we use a text based approach in our literacy lessons. This text is used as a context for writing different text types and narrative genres. The writing process is one where the children are immersed in a certain genre or text type where key features are identified. Children then spend time planning ides for their own ‘big write’. Modelled and shared writing are tools used by the teachers to support the children in becoming confident writers as teachers skilfully model the thought processes used by competent writers in achieving an intended purpose. The children are able to see the importance of word choices and how sentences can be manipulated for maximum impact. During all literacy lessons, links are always made between reading lessons and writing lessons. Differentiated success criteria are used to ensure writing expectations are pitched accurately as well as allowing for challenge and progression.
Children are taught to draft, edit and improve their work.
