Our English curriculums for both Reading, Writing and Literacy in EYFS, clearly identify the foundational knowledge and skills that we want our children to master so that they become proficient and confident speakers, readers and writers. Within these documents we clearly lay out our approaches to early reading and writing and how we develop children’s skills in these areas across the key stages so that they are able to access all aspects of the curriculum at Key Stage Three. In addition to this, they also include our offer for children who are at risk of falling behind.
In reading, we teach our children to read through systematic synthetic phonics using the Little Wandle scheme. Once our children leave KS1 as secure decoders, we want them to continue to develop into fluent readers throughout KS2. Most importantly, we want them to interact with a wide range of texts in a meaningful and enjoyable way, therefore our approach to teaching reading in KS2 is centred around quality texts, teacher modelling of skilled reading, background building and vocabulary development, repeated reading and rich discussion. It is our hope that through our teaching of reading and our wider reading provision offer, we will develop children who identify as readers.
In writing, we prioritise the foundational knowledge of spelling, handwriting and sentence structure throughout the curriculum, as we understand the importance of this in terms of securing children’s transcription and composition skills so that they can write fluently for a range of purposes. As part of our approach to teaching writing, we have a heavy focus on oral composition and rehearsal of sentences so that children learn the grammar of sentences from a young age and also to ensure that children further up school, master accuracy in sentence writing skills. We have a very structured approach to both the teaching of handwriting and spelling, which is outlined within our writing curriculum.
Reading
We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds as our phonics strategy. You can find more details here.
Please click below to view our reading curriculum, beyond phonics. A sample of Year 3 Summer Term, is also below.
Writing
We use a Book-led approach to our Writing Curriculum. Here is an overview of our Year 2 texts:
Below is an example of our half termly planning for Writing.
We apply a systematic approach to spelling. Here is an overview of our Year 5 spelling:
We ensure that handwriting and sentence structure is integral to our teaching in all year groups.
