The teaching of English is at the heart of our Northburn curriculum where children develop the essential knowledge and skills to succeed and thrive in life.
The skills taught in English ensure that children can access all other areas of the curriculum with growing independence and confidence to equip them for their future. The art of writing starts early through confidence and success in reading and phonics. We continue to select quality texts in English and in other subject areas so that our pupils are exposed to challenging vocabulary and model their writing on high quality texts. Children have a clear purpose for writing which helps each child to produce their best writing.
EYFS
At Northburn Primary School, we plan from the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS). On entry, judgements are made against the Development Matters bands to identify each child’s starting point and ensure teaching and learning meets the needs of all. A mixture of child-initiated planning and accurate assessment for learning (AfL) ensures an exciting and hands on cross curricular approach which enables children to make good progress.
In Reception, children develop their early English skills through a range of engaging and interactive approaches using exciting, high-quality books, poems and animations. A strong strategy is the use of ‘Drawing Club’, which encourages creativity and storytelling, allowing children to build narratives and develop vocabulary through drawing and discussion. Pupils also follow a structured phonics programme: Read, Write, Inc. which takes place daily.
Small group work offers targeted support, enabling children to build confidence in speaking, listening, and writing. Throughout the indoor and outdoor environment, invitations to write within our continuous provision encourage independent mark-making and writing in meaningful contexts, while our class ‘vocabulary jar’ introduces and reinforces new words, expanding children’s language and communication skills. These approaches amalgamate to create a rich and supportive environment where children develop strong foundations in English, preparing them for Key Stage One and beyond.
KS1
In Years 1 and 2, children develop their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills as they work towards the end of Key Stage 1 standards. Pupils continue to build their knowledge of phonics using the Read, Write, Inc. programme to develop their reading skills as well as continuing to build upon their recognition of common exception words. Pupils engage with a wide range of texts, which fosters a love of reading, and they begin to further develop their vocabulary knowledge and comprehension skills.
Daily English lessons build on the children’s previous knowledge. The teaching of writing is robust and shows clear progression for all children. The teacher purposefully selects a text/stimulus exposing the children to a wide range of genres, in order to promote a love of English and high-quality writing from each child.
We have high expectations of our children as writers and all adults model good standards of writing and use of expressive vocabulary. Pupils write for a range of purposes and audiences using increasingly varied grammar. Spelling and handwriting are a daily focus as we aim to embed the basic skills necessary for children to meet the expected standards in English for the end of the key stage. We want our children to develop and sustain a good pace for writing so that in KS2, children can write confidently at length.
KS2
At Northburn, we want our children to be confident and enthusiastic writers. They are encouraged to develop resilience throughout the writing process, ensuring that editing and redrafting is an integral part of the learning experience.
We use rich, high-quality texts to support our children’s experience of their spoken language. We feel our children produce their best writing when audience and purpose are at the heart of the process. Within a sequence, we learn the text to embed language and form for the children. They learn about the structure and organisation of a variety of genres. Shared writing provides an opportunity for teachers to demonstrate writing, including the thought processes required. We believe the editing and redrafting process is an important part of the sequence. Teachers explicitly teach genre features as well as word and sentence work within the context of writing. Pupils contribute to class composition by discussing and verbalising thoughts with partners, working in small groups to refine ideas. The success criteria are developed through the teaching sequence as the children explore the effect we want our writing to have on the reader. Constructive feedback is given throughout the process and children reread and edit their writing with support from peers and adults. Cross curricular writing opportunities are planned in every topic to ensure an engaging and purposeful stimulus for children.
Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons. Teachers plan to teach the required skills through the genres of writing that they are teaching, linking it to the genre to make it more connected with the intended writing outcome. Teachers will occasionally focus on particular grammar and punctuation skills as standalone lessons, if it is felt additional lessons are needed to embed and develop understanding or consolidate skills.
Spellings
The systematic teaching of phonics in EYFS and KS1 using the Read, Write Inc. programme ensures that children are given the strategies they need in order to spell. Children use their phonic knowledge to phonetically attempt unknown words. During phonic sessions, children learn to read and spell common exception words. Spellings are shared and explored within ability driven phonics groups and written responses to sounds and words can be linked back to phonics. Red words are words that cannot be sounded out using a phonetical approach but need to be read as a whole word and written with increasing confidence.
In Key Stage 2, we investigate spelling patterns and extend word families derived from particular root words. Children are taught to prove or disprove a spelling hypothesis and build their vocabulary at the same time. Children receive words to practise and are challenged to apply this to other words which follow the same rules.
From Reception to Year 6, children are encouraged to use words from word banks in classrooms, on displays and in ‘Blue Books / Planners’ independently in their writing. In Lower Key Stage 2, children are taught to use a dictionary and thesaurus to support the correct spelling of unfamiliar words. Throughout KS2, children are expected to use them independently.
Handwriting
At Northburn we follow the Letterjoin scheme for teaching handwriting and have high expectations of work presented. We use a consistent approach of teaching handwriting throughout the school, using the guidelines and clear terminology to ensure high standards across the school.