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English Curriculum Intent Statement

Aims

At Temple Grove Academy, we aim to foster a love of reading and language in children that can be readily applied to their writing. We equip our pupils with the skills to be engaging and articulate comuinicators as they progress through their individual educational journeys and beyond into adulthood.

 

Intent

We recognise that a language-rich environment with a strong focus upon developing an expansive vocabulary is fundamental for our pupils in becoming strong thinkers, speakers, readers, and writers. Our English teaching is underpinned by the National Curriculum and supported by up-to-date educational research, to ensure the best possible outcomes for our children in terms of progress and attainment. As we continue to embed our English curriculum, we strive to ensure that:

  • Pupils read a range of different genres and participate whole-heartedly in discussions about what they have read
  • Pupils are explicitly taught to become fluent readers, demonstrating sound comprehension
  • Children actively explore the language used by different authors and the impact certain word choices have on the reader
  • The school environment promotes reading for pleasure alongside reading to research, gather new knowledge and extend understanding
  • Teachers plan experiences, engaging tasks and make use of cross-curricular links so that our pupils have passion and enthusiasm for writing
  • Pupils write clearly and coherently applying the relevant grammar, punctuation, and spelling objectives accurately and to good effect
  • Pupils write competently in different styles and for different purposes and audiences, using their continually developing expansive vocabulary
  • Pupils have a solid understanding of the grammar rules and terminology appropriate for their age group and can demonstrate this in their writing
  • Pupils develop a passion for the subject and are motivated to do well

 

Implementation

At Temple Grove Academy, we believe a combination of explicit skills teaching, the use of exciting, vocabulary rich texts, and an engaging cross-curricular approach, enable our children to make good progress. We deliver this through:

  • The systematic teaching of phonics in EYFS and KS1, in line with current research
  • Using VIPERS to teach explicit reading and comprehension skills daily, supported with a wide range of quality texts
  • The teacher’s daily reading of a class text with class to promote reading for pleasure
  • The use of ‘Sirlinkalot’ and ‘No Nonsense Spellings’ are combined and delivered as part of daily lessons, and discretely and promoted in our home learning grids, to ensure both spelling rules alongside common exception words are taught, explored, understood and applied to writing
  • The use of Power of Reading to plan English lessons and writing outcomes based around a high-quality, language-rich text
  • The embedded teaching of the grammar and punctuation curriculum objectives into our daily English lessons, supported by ‘No Nonsense Grammar.’
  • Providing opportunities for ‘cold-writes’ to enable children to write freely and creatively
  • Placing great emphasis on the expansion of pupil’s vocabulary through consistent approaches to reading and explicit vocabulary teaching in our English lessons
  • Participation in whole school initiatives such as World Book Day and Vocabulary Day to support pupils in feeling a passion for the subject
  • Planning all reading and English lessons creatively, flexibly, and responsively to meet the needs of our children
  • The use of regular assessment cycles to support teacher assessment judgements alongside the use of target tracker
  • Whole school shared writing moderation to ensure good progression in each year group
  • Delivering the above in a fun and engaging ways that creates a love for the subject

 

Impact

At the end of every academic year, we ensure pupils are prepared for the next stage of their individual, educational journey. By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils from Temple Grove Academy will:

  • Have made good progress in the context of their starting points in reading, writing, and speaking and listening.
  • Attain in line with their peers nationally
  • Be articulate, confident, and courteous speakers
  • Be expressive writers who show clear consideration for their reader
  • Use grammatical objectives in order to creatively enhance and improve their writing
  • Read fluently and confidently
  • Understand and discuss what they have read demonstrating clear comprehension
  • Read for pleasure and to further their learning and understanding
  • Enjoy the subject and feel positive about participating in English-based activities
  • In all areas of English, demonstrate a broad bank of vocabulary that enables effective communication
  • Have a secure knowledge of spelling patterns, rules, and common exception words with several reliable strategies to use when writing
  • Be able to transfer these skills to a range of different situations as they progress into adulthood

 

Phonics Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement 

Intent 

At Temple Grove Academy, we recognise reading as a crucial life skill.

We aim for children to read words and simple sentences by the end of Reception, become successful, fluent readers by the end of KS1 and develop a lifelong love of reading as they move through school.

We teach reading through Letterland which is a multisensory synthetic systematic phonics programme. Much research shows that well taught synthetic phonics opens-up reading and writing to children.

Letterland is particularly appealing to young children and has a good range of online resources available which makes continued learning at home easily possible.

We start teaching phonics in Nursery and follow Letterland’s progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. We also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

 

Implementation 

Through the teaching of phonics following the Letterland programme, children are taught the essential skills needed for reading.  Phonics is taught daily to all children in Reception and KS1.  Phonics teaching is systematic, engaging, lively and interactive. Each phonics lesson includes the following elements:

  • Let’s Review
  • Let’s Learn
  • Let’s Practise
  • Wrap it up

 All children in Reception and KS1 have unique Letterland logins which they can use to access Letterland’s Phonics Online at home.

In Reception, we follow the sequence outlined in the Letterland Phonics Teacher’s Guide.  Letters are taught in a sequence which allows for early blending to read words and segmenting for writing. Children must use the letter sounds in blending and segmenting and when looking at the printed letters. Character names are prompts and are only used when the character picture is shown with the letter.

Letterland lessons occur every day and must include a range of multisensory activities linked to the target phoneme. Magnetic letter rainbows and later whiteboards should be used in most lessons. Letterland texts must be read frequently in class before they are set as home reading tasks so that the children are already able to read them with a high level of confidence and accuracy.

In Year 1, phonics lessons follow much the same pattern as in Reception with a greater emphasis on writing sounds and words.

In Year 2, phonics lessons begin to give way to lessons focussed more on spelling patterns (including suffixes and prefixes) and grammar rules.

 

Impact 

As a result of high-quality phonics provision, children make good progress in phonics from their starting points.  Through the consistent, systematic, daily teaching of the Letterland programme, children become fluent, confident readers by the end of KS1.  Children can then focus on fluency and comprehension throughout the school.

Recognition of graphemes in isolation and blending in reading are assessed at agreed intervals using the Letterland assessment resources.  This allows teachers to measure the success of teaching strategies and identify any graphemes that need further practise.

Children are assessed at the end of Year 1 using the Government’s Statutory Assessment Tool known as the Phonics Screening Check.  This screening check confirms whether the child has learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard and will identify children needing further support in Year 2.