English
At the bottom of this page, you will be able to access the policy for English. You will also find where the National Curriculum objectives are taught.
Curriculum Intent
English is a fundamental and extremely creative part of the whole school curriculum at Castle, which develops pupils’ abilities to speak, listen, read and write for a wide range of purposes using language to learn and communicate ideas, views and feelings in an inspiring and purposeful way.
Our pupils are taught in a safe, secure and stimulating environment enabling them all to achieve their potential in the areas of English regardless of their ability, gender or ethnic background.
Our pupils will:
- Read, write and speak competently.
- Express themselves through speech and writing.
- Foster a love of reading.
- Independently apply their skills throughout the curriculum and in real life.
- Have experienced a wide range of stimulating, memorable opportunities.
Curriculum Implementation
Our English curriculum is achievable for all.
Pupils in EYFS and KS1 are taught in small cohort groups and KS2 as mixed-age classes together on the same lesson content at the same time. This ensures that all children can master concepts before moving to the next part of the curriculum sequence, allowing no pupil to fall behind. If a pupil struggles to grasp a concept, this is identified quickly and early intervention ensures the pupil is ready to move forward with the whole class in the next lesson. Although the teaching of the concepts is the same for all, the outcomes in terms of application and scaffold may be different.
Quality first teaching along with setting high expectations for all pupils is found in every classroom. Scaffolding / resources of support are purposeful, enabling the pupils to develop secure levels of independence within the lesson.
Curriculum Impact
When our pupils leave each key stage, they will be fully-equipped with the knowledge, skills and vocabulary necessary to progress to the next stage of their learning. Because of high-quality teaching, pupils will make sustained progress in English and develop the competence to speak, read and write confidently and efficiently. Their memorable experiences here at Castle will enable them to become lifelong learners that enjoy their education and who can work through challenges.
For further information please contact the school on 01782 433218 or email office@castleprimary.co.uk with your request.
Phonics.PNG)
Our school has chosen Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling on a daily basis in the EYFS and Year 1 classes.
Click the link below to access the programme's overview:
LITTLE WANDLE OVERVIEW FOR RECEPTION AND YEAR 1
At Castle, children are taught to make connections between the sounds of our spoken words (phonemes) and the letters that are used to write them down (graphemes). Our Nursery children use Little Wandle's Foundation for Phonics. Children who require more support in their learning of phonics, follow the 'Keep-Up' and 'Catch-Up' programmes provided by Little Wandle.
Spoken Language
At Castle, we ensure that the skills below are an integral part of all subjects throughout our curriculum.
- Listening Skills
- Following Instructions
- Asking & Answering Questions
- Drama, Performance & Confidence
- Vocabulary Building & Standard English
- Speaking For a Range of Purposes
- Participating in Discussion
Reading
Our school reading schemes are:
- Collins Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle for Nursery to Year 1 children
- Collins Big Cats and Oxford Reading Tree for children from Year 2 upwards.
These schemes offer a wide range of texts suitable for all ages and abilities. This ensures pupils have every opportunity to access a range of genres, and to ultimately develop a confidence and love of reading for life.
Word Reading & Comprehension
At Castle, we focus on the mechanics of reading initially:
- Phonics & Decoding: taught through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme, beginning in EYFS and throughout Year 1. For those children who are falling behind their peers in Year 2 and beyond, we use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Rapid Catch-Up programme.
- P Prosody: an integral part of the reading process. Children develop reading with appropriate meaning, stress and intonation. It provides an opportunity to explore characters’ feelings, what words mean and how punctuation adds to the meaning.
- Fluency: developed and refined before moving onto comprehension-based reading.
Comprehension skills are taught and practised within the Little Wandle Reading programme, however the following skills provide the main focus of the reading curriculum within key stage 2. We use the acronym VIPERS as an aid to teacher planning and pupil recall of the reading domains as part of the national curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.
Our reading curriculum consists of - whole class reading, shared reading, modelled reading, guided or group reading and independent reading.
- Vocabulary (V): enabling children to identify and explain the meaning of words in context. Supporting them in expanding their vocabulary and creativity skills in readiness for writing.
- Inference (I) and Prediction (P): enabling children to read for clues / find evidence within a text and apply their own knowledge of the world and other books they have read.
- Explain (E): enabling children to understand why and how authors make particular choices with language and structure of texts. They then explore the effect these choices have on them as a reader.
- Retrieve (R): enabling children to locate key details from fiction and non-fiction texts. Encouraging the use of skimming and scanning a text at speed.
- Sequence / Summarise (S): enabling children to fully understand a text by ordering events or main points. Putting longer sections of text into their own words in order to shorten or simplify them.
Reading
In Reception and Year 1 Reading practice sessions are:
- timetabled three times a week
- taught by a trained teacher/teaching assistant
- taught in small groups
We use assessment to match your child the right level of book. This means that your child should:
- Know all the sounds and tricky words in their phonics book well
- Read many of the words by silent blending (in their head) – their reading will be automatic
- Only need to stop and sound out about 5% of the words by the time they bring the book home – but they should be able to do this on their own
- Your child should be able to read their book without your help
- If they can’t read a word read it to them
- Talk about the book and celebrate their success
The children will also bring a book home for YOU to share and read to them:
- Make the story sound as exciting as you can by changing your voice
- Talk with your child as much as you can
- Introduce new and exciting language
- Encourage your child to use new vocabulary
- Make up sentences together
- Find different words to use
- Describe things you see