English has an extremely high priority in our school in terms of timetabling, school environment (library, displays and even poetry in the loos!), budget allocation, staff PD, in communications with stakeholders (parent meetings, coffee mornings), whole school events (National Poetry Day, World Book Day), competitions (BBC 500 Words, Portico Library) and in outward-facing activities such as author and theatre visits.

The implementation of our English curriculum is carefully and cumulatively sequenced and structured to ensure all children become confident and competent readers, writers, listeners and speakers. 

The following outlines how our curriculum is enacted across its different strands:

Reading

1. Daily Phonics Instruction:
   • Frequency: All children in Key Stage 1 participate in daily 40-minute phonics sessions.
   • Phonics Programme: We utilise the Read Write Inc. (RWI) phonics scheme to teach children the alphabetic code, starting with single letter sounds and progressing to digraphs and trigraphs. We do this extremely effectively and very few of our children enter KS2 having not passed the KS1 Phonics Screening Check (PSC). Once children enter KS2, if they have still not mastered phonics using RWI, class teachers, support staff and the SEND team work together to assess the child’s specific needs and develop a bespoke reading programme for them. This may involve continuing with RWI or transitioning from/supplementing it with other, evidence-led approaches. 
   • Assessment and Grouping: We use a flexible grouping approach. Children are assessed every half term in KS1 and regrouped as necessary, ensuring targeted instruction. Those needing additional support are identified for "Fast Track" interventions. 
2. Matched Decodable Books:
   • As children progress through KS1 and are ready to blend sounds, they receive decodable books that match their current phonics knowledge for both in-school practice and home reading.
   • This practice focusses on developing accuracy, fluency, and comprehension skills.
   • Alongside word reading, we teach the children that punctuation is signposting for the reader. 
3. Story time/Class Novels:
   • Reading time is integrated into the daily timetable for every class in the school, promoting a love of reading, of literature and building knowledge and vocabulary.
   • We have developed a carefully-curated and continually-evolving school canon of class novels, which expose our children to the best that has been thought and said. Our objective is to feed our children the richest and most diverse literary diet to prepare them for further study at KS3 and beyond. We explicitly teach the drawing of links between texts, themes and ideas in order to narrate the cultivation of mental schema.
4. Reading Scheme:
   • Structured Reading: All children follow a reading scheme until the end of Year 3. After completing the RWI Phonics programme, they transition onto coloured book bands (Oxford Reading Tree - ORT), with their progress monitored and recorded by class teachers and support staff. Please see the note below on how we approach reading with our lowest 20% of readers. 
   • Free Reading: From Y2 to Y6, we baseline all children’s reading ages annually in September using NGRT standardised tests. Usually in Year 4 (cohort-dependent), those whose reading age is 2 years above their chronological age transition to Free Reading. We use Reading Journals to monitor progress. Those children whose reading age is not 2 years above their chronological age continue to follow a scheme (ORT/Junior Phonics or, due to identified learning differences, may be dyslexia-friendly - Little Gems/Barrington Stokes). In Years 5 & 6 (cohort-dependent), all children are free readers. Our class shelves are well-stocked and oft-refreshed with modern and classic fiction and non-fiction texts, and the children can also borrow books from our library. Children in Years 5 & 6 who are not meeting age-related expectations (ARE) for reading, read daily or frequently with an adult (depending on how far from ARE they are). All children in KS2, no matter their reading ability, read aloud, in class, at least once during the week. 
5. Whole Class Guided Reading (WCGR):
   • We follow an evidence-led approach in the teaching of reading, exposing our children to ambitious and varied fiction, non-fiction and poetry extracts using a pedagogy which includes modelled expert prosody, repeated reading, echo and choral reading, text marking and modelled comprehension. The focus in reading lessons is the acquisition of rich vocabulary, cultural capital and powerful knowledge, the cultivation of early literary criticism skills, and subsequent retrieval practice of this content to ensure it sticks.
   • Our children’s Reading exercise books/folders contain BCS-specific objectives, which align with the National Curriculum and are used for self, peer and teacher assessment.
6. Library and Independent Reading:
   • All classes have timetabled library lessons, during which the children can choose books and participate in reading activities.
   • All classes  (Year 1 up) have the opportunity to visit our local library for a librarian-led session during the year.

7.  Strategies for Struggling Readers: 

Reading provides the knowledge and skills to unlock the rest of the curriculum. It is children’s birthright and entitlement to be taught to read well. Thus, we are laser-focussed on closing the gap between our lowest-attaining readers and their peers: 

• Lowest 20% of readers KS1: provision includes daily phonics lessons and reading practice; Fast Track tutoring 1:1; progress carefully monitored using online assessments each half term and earlier if required; extra phonics practice videos shared for home use; SALT interventions where appropriate; spotlighting in Pupil Progress meetings; on SLT radar; SEND adaptations made if required;  progress closely monitored by English & Assessment leads.   
• Lowest 20% of readers KS2: provision includes daily/frequent reading with a dedicated, accountable adult; small-group boosters using EEF pedagogical approach; invitation to before-school reading sessions where capacity allows; IDL - literacy intervention software; FFT reading assessments; bespoke reading/Phonics scheme if best practice suggests it; SALT interventions where appropriate; spotlighting in Pupil Progress meetings; SEND adaptations made if required; progress closely monitored by English & Assessment leads.  

Writing

1. Curriculum Design & Content:
   • We use Jane Considine’s "The Write Stuff" approach, focusing on genre immersion, vocabulary-gathering, modelling, cognitive chunking, structured, guided practice followed by independent practice and reflection (proofreading and editing, using green pens/pencils).
   • To ensure our children become skilled independent writers and see themselves as authors, they engage in purposeful writing tasks after guided practice, over which they increasingly have choice as they move through school, thus allowing them to apply taught knowledge and skills. 
2. Compliance with National Curriculum:
   • Our writing tasks are selected based on ensuring our children write for a wide range of purposes and audiences, ensuring that the breadth of the National Curriculum Programme of Study for English is covered. 
   • Our children’s Writing workbooks contain BCS-specific objectives, which align with the National Curriculum and are used for self, peer and teacher assessment.
3. Handwriting & Word Processing:
   • Handwriting is taught in timetabled sessions in KS1 and Year 3, and ad hoc in years 4-6, using the Letterjoin scheme. Our children do not write with pens until Year 5. 
   • In Reception, our children build the gross and fine motor skills they need for fluency in writing, including the teaching of correct (tripod) pencil grip and posture for writing. Correct letter formation is taught using the Read Write Inc handwriting phrases and visuals during our daily phonics sessions, to ensure each letter has the correct orientation.  Our expectation by the end of EYFS is that all children can write (print) recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed, and that they can scribe simple phrases and sentences which are readable by others. In Year 1, we continue to develop their fine and gross motor skills before making the transition to pre-cursive writing in teacher-modelled handwriting sessions. In Year 2, we begin to teach the joining of letters and embed the concepts of relativity of letter sizing and orientation.  This work continues in Year 3, and beyond if required. By Year 6, the vast majority of our children meet the KS2 standard for handwriting, which is that they can 'maintain legibility in joined handwriting when writing at speed'. 
   • All children have timetabled lessons in our Computing Suite, KS1 has access to a class set of Ipads, our Year 3–5 children have laptop access, and all of our Year 6 children have a personal Chromebook. This ensures that by the time they leave us, our children have secure word-processing skills. 

Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling (GPS)

1. P&G Curriculum Design & Content:
   • Our punctuation & grammar curriculum has been designed in-house using expertise gained through subject leader CPD and is bespoke to us. It includes a range of teacher-made and published resources and, in Years 5 & 6, the SPAG.com portal. 
   • Teachers create sequences of lessons based on National Curriculum objectives, using a “small steps” approach to ensure that over time children know and can do more, and engage in ongoing retrieval and spacing practice to ensure learning sticks.
   • Our responsive teaching pedagogy means that teachers are continuously reviewing children’s output and ensuring that gaps in skills/knowledge are plugged. 
2. Spelling:
   • Years 2-6 follow the Read Write Inc. Spelling Scheme, which introduces spelling rules and provides practice opportunities as well as half-termly tests to monitor progress and for diagnostic gap analysis.
   • Regular assessments of taught spellings and frequent exposure to high-frequency words are incorporated into planning, to reinforce learning.

Oracy

1. Dialogic Classrooms:
   • Speaking and listening activities are embedded throughout our curriculum and are explicitly taught through purposeful and planned activities, in English and all subjects, to promote excellence in oracy. These may take the form of collaborative learning structures, discussions, debates, drama, our Thursday 'Thunks' or our weekly 'Topical Talk' sessions. 
   • We speak in 'scholar sentences' and use agreed discussion guidelines when collaborating with each other. 
   • Our vision is for our children to 'speak like specialists' in all subjects. 
   • Children are provided with public speaking opportunities in assemblies, class worship, to visitors and at church events, fostering confidence and public speaking skills.
2. Vocabulary Building:
   • We explicitly teach Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary, and our children in Years 5 & 6 are taught Latin on a rotation, all of which supports ambitious vocabulary acquisition. 

Homework and Parent Engagement

1. Reading at Home:
   • Our expectations of home reading are made clear to parents, who are encouraged to support daily personal reading at home, reinforcing skills learnt in school. Teachers and our SEND team work very closely in partnership with those families whose child is a struggling reader. 
   • As children progress through our school, they receive varied, purposeful English homework to further support their learning.
2. Collaboration with Parents:
   • We maintain open communication with all parents about expectations and provide resources to support their children’s development across our English curriculum.
   • We host termly Reading Coffee Mornings for parents, to inform them about how we teach reading, why we do it the way we do, to invite questions and offer advice. 
   • We host ad hoc parent workshop sessions to support learning where we identify a need. 

Assessment and Inclusion

• In all aspects of English, we have developed our own, bespoke objectives grids, based upon the National Curriculum Programme of Study for English but adapted for our context. These appear in children’s work books and are used for teacher, self and peer assessment. 
• Teachers engage in ongoing formative assessment to assess children’s progress and to monitor the impact of teaching and learning. These informal assessments are high challenge, low threat and are not formally recorded. 
• We formally test Reading using standardised tests at the start of each academic year, as a baseline.
• Formal, standardised tests are thereafter completed twice per year (apart from Year 6, which follows a different approach due to KS2 SATs) in Reading, and the results are recorded on our assessment MIS. 
• Writing is formally teacher-assessed twice a year and moderated both internally and externally with cluster schools. The results are recorded on our MIS. 
• Punctuation and Grammar are assessed using ongoing, low-stakes checks and in the children’s writing.
• Spelling is assessed using RWI spelling tests and also in children’s writing. 
• Twice annually, teachers make teacher judgments about children's attainment across all areas of English: Reading, Writing, Oracy, P&G and Spelling. These judgments, against the National Curriculum Programme of Study for English and informed by test results and a broad spectrum of evidence, are recorded on our assessment MIS and are shared with parents in mid-year and annual reports. We assess children as Below, Working Towards, Secure or Greater Depth when judged against the objectives for their year group. Those children assessed as Below are also assessed using the Pre-Keystage (PKS) Framework in Reading & Writing. By Year 6, it is exceptionally unusual for any of our children to be assessed using the PKS Framework.  
• Our English curriculum is continually evolving, based on teacher and child feedback, the attainment and progress of our learners, developments arising from benchmarking/networking with other schools, and emerging educational research. We are wholly committed to ensuring that it remains relevant and optimally effective.