English

Intent:

Our intent is to provide a high quality English curriculum that develops skills in reading, writing and discussion. Our curriculum has been designed with the intention that all children will become fluent readers and skilled writers; that they will develop a love of reading, writing and vocabulary, which will stay with them for life.

We recognise that a good grasp of English is the foundation of the entire curriculum and children who are confident, adept readers and writers will be empowered to succeed in all other areas.

Implementation:

phonics

We believe that Phonics provides the foundation in supporting children to become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers.

We use the government validated systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) ‘Little Wandle: Letters & Sounds Revised’.

The programme is designed to teach children to read from Reception to Year 2, using the skills of decoding and blending sounds together to form words. The Little Wandle programme provides a full progression through all commonly occurring GPCs (sounds), working from simple to more complex, and taking into account the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words.

We foster the foundations for phonics in Nursery to support children to be at the stage where they are ready to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception. We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’.

These include:

sharing high-quality stories and poems
learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
engaging in activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
the promotion of high-quality language.

We support all children in Nursery to be at the stage where they are ready to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Phonics is taught daily in Reception and Year 1 and continues into Year 2 for children who have not passed the Phonics Screening Check.

In Reception and Year 1, children receive daily phonics lessons, taught in their classes. In addition, children are taught the skills to read effectively in small groups, 2 - 3 times weekly. Reading groups are made up of approximately 6 children, and are led by teachers and (fully trained) LSAs.

The ‘Daily Keep Up’ programme is used in Reception and Year 1 for children who need support to keep up.

The ‘Rapid Catch Up’ programme is used for children in year 2 and above who need more support with mastering the phonic code and becoming fluent readers.

Children’s home reading books are fully decodable, matched to their secure phonic knowledge.

Big Cat for Little Wandle Fluency books – are used in Year 2 to bridge the gap between learning phonics and becoming a fluent reader. Children are assessed and grouped accordingly - group sessions take place weekly.

Click here to find out more about Phonics at The Disraeli School.

reading

In addition to daily phonics, we teach reading in KS1 using a Reading Spine of books which have been carefully chosen to make links with and enhance the curriculum themes of each term. There are 6 theme linked books per term in Year 1 and Year 2.

The reading skills beyond that of decoding are explored using these books.

We use the VIPERS framework and a Progression of Skills document to structure our teaching.

(VIPERS Vocabulary Inference Predict Explain Retrieve Sequence)

Reading lessons (VIPERS) in KS1 are planned to be less formal than in KS2.

The chosen books are used to promote a love of reading at the same time as exploring reading skills. Teacher’s use the language of VIPERS so that the children begin to develop an awareness of the reading skills they are learning and are equipped for reading at KS2.

There are 4 VIPERS sessions, and 1 Independent Reading session timetabled each week.

We continue to use the Collins Big Cat Reading Scheme beyond Phonics in KS2,and children’s Reading Homework books are decodable and matched to their accuracy rate. This means that the focus of their reading progress is on developing their comprehension skills. The Big Cat Big Cat Collins Reading scheme ensures that children read widely and broadly across a range of genres in books matched to their reading ability.

In Nursery, Reception, KS1 and KS2 choose a Reading for Pleasure book from the classroom to take home alongside their Little Wandle / Big Cat book.

In KS2, there are 3 VIPERS sessions timetabled each week and 1 Independent Reading session timetabled each week.

VIPERS in KS2 is delivered through whole class teaching sessions. There are 3 novels studied per academic year. The novels have been chosen to link to / enhance the curriculum themes per term, as well as to provide a breadth of reading experience and authorship.

Reading lessons are planned in a 3 part format: Prepare. Read. React (see Appendix 1 - What a 3 part lesson might look like).

Lessons are interactive – the children listen to, as well as join in with the reading.

The teacher explicitly models the skills of proficient reading; including inferring meaning and reading with fluency and expression.

The focus of Shared Reading lessons is ‘continuous text’, ie a chapter book / novel that is read from start to finish.

The texts are pitched ‘high’ to raise our expectations of all learners and promote growth mind-set attitudes to those who perhaps perceive themselves as ‘weak’ readers.

The teacher enables all learners to access the text through careful modelling, questioning and feedback, providing different opportunities for talk and responding to the text.

story time

Story Time is a key requirement of the Reading Framework. It is time set aside, daily, for the high-quality stories to be read aloud by the teacher.

Story Time promotes the love of reading and is a calm and relaxing time for the class to enjoy the story being read by the teacher. Formal / planned questioning is not a part of Story Time but teacher’s will explore / make explicit language and meaning so that children are able to understand and be fully immersed in the story that they are reading.

The books for Story Time have been predetermined by school leaders (not chosen adhoc).

book club

Book club is a space on the timetable for teachers to promote books and for children to make recommendations to each other.

Book Club takes place once a week for approximately 20 minutes.

What Book Club might look like:

The teacher introducing books that the children might like to read;
Other adults talking to the children about ‘good’ books;
Pupils to reading with a partner, sharing nonfiction books, a comic or children’s newspaper together;
Pupils choosing a short story, picture book or extract of a book they love to be shared with the class;
Pupils being given the opportunity to recommend a book to the rest of the class.

What a Book Club display might look like:

Pictures of book covers enjoyed by pupils;
Two- or three-word book review and offer them vocabulary suggestions: ‘page-turner’, ‘fascinating’, ‘engrossing’, ‘intriguing’, ‘hilarious’, ‘ridiculous’, ‘heart-wrenching’, ‘excellent characters’, ‘scary and sad’, ‘made me angry’, ‘tedious’ (rather than ‘boring’);
‘Pupils who read this book also enjoyed...’;
Photos of ‘themselves’ reading the books at home, or in unusual places;
‘Top Ten’ lists of fiction and non-fiction;
Recommended Reading lists;
Teacher’s Recommended book of the week / half term.

Writing

EYFS:

Throughout EYFS, there are daily opportunities for writing through adult led activities and the continuous provision.

Adult-led writing activities take place twice weekly in the Autumn and Spring term, moving to three times weekly in the Summer term. Rich, stimulating ‘hooks’ are used to capture the children’s imagination and interests and make strong links to the theme of the term. Teachers create opportunities for talk to support the children to generate and articulate their ideas.

There are daily opportunities for writing in the continuous provision, both indoors and outdoors. The children have access to a range of writing tools to help support the development of fine and gross motor skills.

In addition, we use the Helicopter Stories approach to oral story telling. Initially modelled by the adults in Nursery.

Helicopter Stories is a simple approach where a child sits with an adult and tells a story; the adult listens intently and scribes the story word for word, later the class or group act out the story. This approach to ‘listening’ to the child makes talking and communication exciting, and in turn promotes the development of language acquisition and articulation, as well as engaging the children as writers by making the link between the spoken and written word.

Helicopter Story sessions take place one a week in Nursery and Reception.

KS1 and KS2

In KS1 and KS2 we use high quality model texts which match the theme of the term as springboard for teaching writing.

Each model text provides a concrete example of the expected outcome of the unit of work. The teacher uses the model text to explore text structure, grammatical features and language conventions of specific text types. Through the exploration of the model text, children are exposed to high-level vocabulary and a range of punctuation as well as opportunities for inference and speaking and listening.

Units of work are planned in 3 phases; each spanning approximately 1 week (depending on the text type).

Tier 2 / subject specific vocabulary is taught at the start of Phase 1 and the children go on to explore how sentence structure, grammar and vocabulary choices are carefully chosen to fit the purpose and audience of a genre of writing. They are given opportunities for collaborative thinking and shared writing.

In Phase 2, the children begin to formulate and structure their own ideas in order to generate content for their independent writing in Phase 3.

We understand the importance of modelling writing and this is built into the planning framework. Modelled writing enables the teacher to demonstrate the thoughts and actions that go into creating a text. It is an opportunity for children to observe a proficient writer going through the process of putting ideas into a written form.

In Phase 3, the children explore the planning process for the genre of writing they are exploring and each unit of work culminates in a Show Piece (an independent write) where the children ‘show’ what they have learnt / what the can do.

(See Appendix 2 - What a 3-phase unit might look like)

Impact:

Our English curriculum ensures a clear progression of knowledge and skills in Reading and Writing across the school.

By the time the children leave Disraeli at the end Key Stage 2, they will be able to read fluently and confidently for a range of purposes and across a range of subjects. They will understand how writers make vocabulary and organisational choices based on text purpose and intended audience.

The thematic approach to selecting reading books and model texts across the English curriculum provides the children with a broad experience of the theme for the term – they are able to make links in their learning and apply knowledge and skills across a range of subjects; this in turn fosters curiosity and encourages questioning. Exposure to high-level language that runs through more than one subject broadens the children’s vocabulary and helps to prepare them for future education, and life-long learning.

Reading schemes

At The Disraeli School, we see reading as an integral part of our school curriculum, that impacts on all learning. We value the importance of being a confident reader and work hard to develop children’s reading skills. We want children to enjoy reading a wide range of different books and be able to talk about books and authors.

In Reception and Key Stage 1, teachers use resources from the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’ scheme when teaching children to read. Every opportunity is seized throughout the day to enable pupils to use their reading skills when accessing other areas of the curriculum. Throughout the week, teachers frequently read aloud to the children and engage them, through active discussions, in order to promote an enjoyment of reading and to expose them to a range of vocabulary that may be beyond their current reading ability. In addition to this, we have a wide range of non-fiction texts that are used during lessons to embed and enhance learning wherever possible.

In Reception and Key Stage 1, children take home two books each week. The first book is a familiar text from the ‘Collins Big Cat Letters and Sounds’ reading scheme. Your child will have already read this book with an adult in school and will be familiar with the words and phonics needed to decode. We firmly believe that adults in school should be teaching reading and therefore see reading this book at home as an opportunity to celebrate your child’s reading ability and offer praise and encouragement. The second book that children bring home is a reading for pleasure text. The children are able to choose this book from the library. It is an opportunity for siblings or adults at home to read this text to your child or read it together. This text will help children to practice their reading skills.

Once children are confident with phonics they will move on to a banded book and begin "reading homework".

See more below about the banded reading scheme for children once they have passed the Phonics Screening Check in Key Stage 1 (Years 2 – 6).

Children will usually read about 6 fiction and 6 non-fiction books on each band before moving up. This is to give them exposure to different text-types and styles of writing and to consolidate their learning in reading, applying it in lots of different ways, before moving up to the next challenge.

We will encourage the children to continue reading the books they love to read, and children will also take home an additional 'reading for pleasure book' from their classroom library.

These 'reading for pleasure' books should NOT be recorded in the reading record.

How it works:

For children from Reception to Year 6....
Children must read their Big Cat banded book OR Little Wandle Phonics book for their reading homework and only this should be recorded in the Reading Record.
Children will be expected to read every day (the more they read, the more points they get!)
Reading Records will be checked 2x weekly; during the timetabled Classroom Reading sessions.
Adults at school will sign / initial, or use a stamp to show that they have checked the Reading Record.
Adults at school will count the number of times the child has read and write this in the Reading Record....

Once a child has read 30 times at home, they will achieve their Bronze Reader badge.
Counting then goes back to 0 and once they have read 30 times, the child will achieve their Bronze Reader certificate.
Counting then goes back to 0 and once they have read 40 times, the child will achieve their Silver Reader badge.
Counting then goes back to 0 and once they have read 40 times, the child will achieve their Silver Readercertificate.
Counting then goes back to 0 and once they have read 40 times, the child will achieve their Gold Reader badge.

The numbers have been calculated with about 15 school days spare - so to earn a Gold Reader Badge a child really needs to read EVERY school night! It can be done!

There is a different coloured badge for each of the year groups – and there will be three to collect each year (Bronze, Silver and Gold as above)

We really would like parents to sign and/or note what their child has read, rather than the children themselves.

Reading books and records MUST be in school every day.

reading information slides 1.pdf

Storytime posters

Below, you will see which books your children will be reading during storytime.

This is a carefully planned and sequential list of books.

All of the children have storytime every day.

This is different to Shared Reading (VIPERS), Phonics and the individual reading scheme.

Curriculum subject links

Curriculum-Gallery (ID 1060)

English

Intent:

Implementation:

phonics

reading

story time

book club

Writing

Impact:

Recommended reading lists

Reading schemes

Storytime posters

Curriculum subject links

English

Phonics

Mathematics

History

Geography

Science

PE

RSE

PSHE

Computing

Music

RE

Modern Foreign Language

Art

Design and Technology