English Curriculum Intent

English is at the heart of every child and adult’s life. We live in an environment where written text is all around us and we use the fundamentals of writing and reading in our daily lives. This is why at Collingwood we believe that English should be at the heart of all aspects of school life. 

We recognise that at Collingwood, our children have varied life experiences and the ability to read and write effectively directly impacts their life choices. We understand that reading and writing skills also have a direct impact upon progress and attainment in all areas of the curriculum and also upon a child’s self esteem, well-being and motivation to learn. Therefore, we recognise that children need to develop a secure knowledge of the skills in literacy which follows a clear path of progression as they develop through the school. This is crucial for our school as we support them to become lifelong writers and readers enabling them to participate as full members of society. 

At Collingwood Primary School, 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, speaking and listening. 

• We believe in supporting our children to love reading and writing. 

• 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.

Our English curriculum is derived around high quality age-appropriate texts. We use books to create opportunities to develop reading fluency and comprehension with a focus on key reading strategies and skills; develop grammar and punctuation knowledge and understanding to use and apply across the wider curriculum; explore the writing structure and features of different genres, identify the purpose and audience; plan and write an initial piece of writing with a clear context and purpose before evaluating the effectiveness of writing by editing and redrafting. 

Implementation

Our English curriculum is derived around high quality age-appropriate texts. We use books to create opportunities to develop reading fluency and comprehension with a focus on key reading strategies and skills; develop grammar and punctuation knowledge and understanding to use and apply across the wider curriculum; explore the writing structure and features of different genres, identify the purpose and audience; plan and write an initial piece of writing with a clear context and purpose before evaluating the effectiveness of writing by editing and redrafting. 

Writing :

We will use the Literacy Tree Writing Roots framework to introduce pupils to the key elements of writing, including story structure, vocabulary development, and sentence construction. This approach will be embedded in our Reception and Year 1 classrooms through a combination of teacher-led lessons, interactive activities, and independent writing tasks. Alongside this in Reception, Drawing Club will be incorporated to support students in visualising their ideas and enhancing their storytelling through illustrations. Children are encouraged to plan their stories by drawing pictures and writing captions, gradually progressing to more complex compositions as they develop their skills. 

Teachers provide ongoing guidance and feedback, using resources from both Literacy Tree and Drawing Club to support individual progress and celebrate children's creative achievements.

Grammar:

As stipulated in the National Curriculum, the grammar of our first language is learnt naturally and implicitly through interactions with other speakers and from reading. Explicit knowledge of grammar is, however, very important, as it gives us more conscious control and choice in our language. Grammar lessons are taught as part of our book-led curriculum (we use the Writing Roots framework by Literacy Tree) and sequence of lessons. Pupils are taught discrete grammar skills within this allowing opportunities to identify, practise and consolidate grammatical understanding. It is within class teachers' expectations that following the sequence of lessons will form building blocks to a piece of writing.  Pupils will begin to independently apply the grammar skills and content taught and embed these within their writing. 

Spelling:

At Collingwood Primary, spelling is taught regularly in focused sessions within each class, using the Spelling Seeds curriculum from Literacy Tree which uses the national curriculum framework for spellings. Spellings are sent home in each year group as part of the children’s homework; the pupils are then tested on these words weekly.   

Daily early morning work, activities in each class are also linked to the current areas of focus in grammar, punctuation or spelling, to further practise, consolidate and apply learning in order to assist with their recall, retrieval and application of their knowledge and skills.

Reading 

Our Reading curriculum is taught:

• So that our youngest children use phonetically decodable books that are matched directly to the child’s phonological awareness

• So that the books the children read are phonetically progressive and are matched to the book banding system

• So that children have the opportunity to take part in one-to-one reading with an adult, guided reading and whole class reading across a variety of different curriculum areas

• So that teachers share their love of reading and model reading skills at every opportunity

• So that children can develop their reading fluency, and this is monitored regularly by the class teacher

• So that reading comprehension is taught through the teacher using scaffolded questions which address vocabulary development and word meaning, alongside the development of deduction and inference skills

• So that activities allow for children to develop skills in:

          -the retelling of a story using story language

          -making predictions based upon what they have read

          -inferring meaning from what they have read

          -being able to explain an author’s language choice and the impact of this on the reader

• So that all children’s progress is monitored and evaluated closely and that additional support and intervention can be put in place for those who are struggling

At Collingwood Primary School, our core tool for reading in EYFS/KS1 is Twinkl Phonics.  Reading books from other schemes are also used that fit within the book banded system of Twinkl Phonics (‘Rhino Readers’) once children have mastered phonemes/graphemes/spelling patterns that are outlined within the Twinkl Phonics assessments (see Phonics statement). Key skills and techniques are modelled and taught throughout Key Stage One and Key Stage Two. We have a range of opportunities during the school day/week for reading including:  guided, whole class, independent reading and 3 o’clock read.  We also ask parents and carers to encourage their children to read at home for at least 15-20 minutes per day and run reading workshops for parents/carers within the school year.

Reading is not only celebrated in classrooms, around school you will also find; book displays, inspiring reading corners and library spaces, current class and teacher reads and a book-led writing curriculum implemented across all phases. Additionally, throughout the school year the importance of reading is enhanced through World Book Day, author visits and Book Fairs to further enrich our English curriculum. We develop children’s cultural capital through regular local library visits too. Parents/carers are encouraged to share books, read to and listen to their child read at home daily. To further support reading at home, we also have a book vending machine in the library.  Children earn a token for a free book, upon recording 25 occasions of reading at home with an adult in their Supporting Learning Books.

Vocabulary Development

The development of vocabulary has been a focus at Collingwood and continues to underpin the curriculum with teachers using opportunities in reading as well as the wider national curriculum subjects to identify key vocabulary, explore meaning and apply this to their learning. 

Phonics Curriculum Information

Intent

At Collingwood we strive to ensure that all children become successful, fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. In order to do this we provide every child with high quality phonics as this plays a key role in children developing word decoding skills using the DFE approved Twinkl scheme.

Phonics Implementation 

In order to achieve this every child from Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 (and Year 3, if appropriate) receives daily phonic lessons taught by ability in smaller groups, using the government approved scheme - ‘Twinkl Phonics’. Every lesson has a clear precise structure of revisit, teach, practise and apply. This allows for a recapping of previous knowledge and time to embed new learning, this can then be practised and applied in both reading and writing every day. In EYFS, each week children will bring home a sheet which includes the sound that they have been learning in school. In KS1 children will take home spellings each week, linked to the grapheme or spelling pattern they have been learning in phonics.  These are sent home so that children can be supported further by parents and carers,  providing additional opportunities to practise and consolidate learning. Children also choose individual reading books to read at home, from a band of books which is closely matched to their individual level of phonics.  These include ‘Rhino Reader’ books (from the Twinkl phonics scheme) plus others including ‘Bug Club’ & ‘Songbirds’ (which have been re-labelled to fit in with the Twinkl Phonics scheme).  A range of free reader books are colour banded after level 6 phonics.

Throughout lessons, children are also taught how to read and spell tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out e.g. was, you) so that they are confident with these. At Collingwood we teach children in streamed groups across EYFS and KS1. This allows all children to access age appropriate phonics. Children will typically learn Level 2 and Level 3 sounds in Reception with them starting Level 4 in the Summer. In Year 1 Level 4 is recapped before Level 5 is taught, including alternative phonemes and alternative graphemes. Level 6 is then taught in Year 2, which covers spelling patterns and rules.

In Year 1 children will also partake in the Phonic Screening Test which assesses their phonic knowledge and ability to apply sounds to read both real and alien (pseudo) words. Any child that does not reach the expected standard in the phonics screener will be reassessed in Year 2.  All children are closely monitored and regularly assessed so that any children who are struggling, or have gaps or misconceptions, are identified early and additional support put in place.  Targeted pupils in Yrs 3, 4, 5 and 6, receive a range of interventions suitable for their needs/learning styles e.g. Rapid Phonics, SNIP spelling and other spelling strategies in small groups.

Your child's reading record and the key sounds and words they are currently working on can be found in your child’s "Supporting Learning Book" which should be kept in their book bag and be brought into school and taken home every day.