English

Intent

At Beaudesert, we aim to ensure that all children become confident and fluent within each strand of our English curriculum: reading, writing and spoken language. Our intention is to foster a life-long appreciation of rich vocabulary and texts, develop stamina to write at length and for purpose, developing the necessary expression and distinction in their writing to communicate well. We will provide vital tools for expression and creativity through imaginative story-telling. We strive to enable all children develop well both emotionally and socially through having access to a diverse range of literature across different mediums. This will enable children to read often for both pleasure and information. From the Early Years Foundation Stage through to Year Four, we provide an inspiring environment that promotes enjoyment in learning all key aspects of the English language.

Implementation

Upon wider school reopening in September 2020, we have begun to deliver a bespoke curriculum designed to prioritise key knowledge and skills, allowing for opportunities to review and embed fundamental prior learning. Our ‘Back on Track’ Engage and Explore Units provide each year group with captivating texts to read and inspire well-structured writing at length.

With these aims in mind, writing and reading opportunities are timetabled daily across all year groups.

Early Reading

In Early years children are taught systematic synthetic phonics through the Government sanctioned scheme Little Wandle. Children in Early Years Foundation Stage have daily phonics lessons, reading groups with scheme books using appropriate phonics and keep up intervention groups for children that need more support. These sessions cover phonics for word reading as well as comprehension and prosody. (see separate Intent, Implementation and Impact for Phonics). In addition, daily literacy lessons, based on high quality texts following a topic theme, support a love of reading. These texts are used as inspiration for writing experiences, which are extended into opportunities for writing throughout continuous provision. Relevant books are provided in every area of the provision and children have access to exciting and engaging texts.

Reaching Every Child

Vulnerable groups and those needing additional reading support are identified by class teachers and reading interventions are put in place to support the development of their reading. This may be small group comprehension work or additional daily reading to develop fluency and build confidence. Purchases of lower level, older interest books have been bought to support our less confident readers in KS2.

Challenge

Whilst children are able to choose books that interest them, we encourage a desire to read outside that comfort zone so that they experience a wide range of genre and a good variety of fiction and non-fiction within that. We began a system of ‘leader-readers’ so that children in every year group and reading level get to experience leading a book discussion.

Writing

At Beaudesert, we ensure that the teaching of writing is purposeful and there is a clear progression for all children.  In line with the National Curriculum, we ensure that each year group is teaching the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives required for that age group whilst exposing children to model texts and providing varied writing opportunities.  As well as teaching the National Curriculum objectives, teachers are able to embed the skills throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities. We make use of whole school joint write each term. A story begins in our Early Years with each child writing and their story is passed up so that every child adds their own additions until Year Four conclude. It shows the children their potential and progression, enabling them to share the communicative value of the written word. Writing is celebrated across the school with displays of high quality writing, along with sharing successes for the children in our celebration assemblies.

Each year group has indicated their own learning pathways that ensures that our intent for this subject is planned into their sequence of learning.

Impact

• Our pupils enjoy reading and are exposed to a broad range of high quality texts and authors.
• Successful readers are nurtured through the good teaching of both language comprehension and word reading.
• Pupils have a vast 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 lower KS2 (Year 4), pupils achieve above local averages in reading and writing both at and above age related expectations and at greater depth.

We foster a community of enthusiastic and engaged readers and writers who we hope will carry forward the high aspirations and creativity that has been encouraged at Beaudesert as they move forward in their education.