Intent
At Bishop Bronescombe, it is our aim that children are taught and have opportunities to express themselves and develop their understanding of the world through their speaking, listening, reading and writing.
At Bishop Bronescombe, we want children to become avid readers who engage in high quality reading opportunities that are both enjoyable, challenging and cross- curricular. We aim to ensure all children have access to a broad range of high quality reading materials & opportunities, which will enable them to become lifelong, independent and confident readers who read for pleasure and information. We want our children to be able to read fluently and widely and express preferences and opinions about the texts that they read.
It is our intention that children use their rich and varied reading experiences to inform their writing. We aim to expose our children to a wide range of ambitious vocabulary (through reading and writing) which they are expected to apply in their speaking, listening and writing. We want children to have opportunities to write for a range of audiences and purposes using the grammatical accuracy, application of their spelling and phonic knowledge and the use of a cursive handwriting style appropriate for their age.
Implementation
We follow the National Curriculum objectives to ensure children are making progress and achieving attainment for their appropriate age:
Reading
At Bishop Bronescombe, the development of reading begins with the systematic and rigorous teaching of phonics using Read, Write, Inc. in order that children build a knowledge of phonemes and graphemes, as well as an increasing recognition of sight words, so that they can become readers as quickly as possible. Reading books at this stage are consistent with their assessed phonic stage and allow children to apply their phonic knowledge at home. In addition, children have a ‘challenge reading book’ where other reading strategies can be employed and children are exposed to a greater range of vocabulary and genres. Children also have a weekly library book, which encourages reading for pleasure and meets children’s individual interests and preferences. There is a clear expectation made to both children and parents that children should read at home at least 4 times a week; provision is made, in school time, by teachers, TAs and volunteers, for children who do not have that opportunity.
Alongside the continuing teaching of strategies to develop word reading (identifying prefixes and suffixes, silent letters, homophones, common exception words etc), reading comprehension skills are developed through high quality questioning based on the national curriculum programme of study in both guided group reading sessions and whole class reading sessions. A focus is made in both group and whole class reading sessions on the skills of reading aloud fluently and strategies for understanding the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary. In addition, our ‘Word of the Week’ offers further opportunity for children to consider the morphology and etymology of words that they may come across in the reading. Regular reading assessments are made using standardised tests and teacher assessments and intervention group work is provided for both individuals and groups of children based on need.
Texts for group and whole class reading sessions are selected by teachers to ensure children are exposed to the range of genre as contained in the National Curriculum Programme of Study, to meet the interests of children and to make links to learning to other areas of the curriculum.
In order to develop reading for pleasure, daily early morning reading gives opportunities for children to have sustained reading for a period time. Reading records for children in KS2 include a list of recommended reads that are age-appropriate and ‘free- readers’ have been banded in ability levels to support children’s choice of reading materials. Class teachers read a class-reader daily to their children in order to model the excitement and pleasure that reading offers. The school learning environment aims to reflect the value that the school places on reading. New reading material is regularly added to the reading stock based on children’s preferences and recommendations as well as to ensure breadth, challenge and variety.
Whole School reading events, such as World Book Day, Share a Book Day and visiting authors emphasise the importance that our school places on the pleasure of reading and a love of books. In addition, training for parents and carers in phonics and reading is provided by the school as a means of supporting parents in their role of helping their children develop their reading at home and to demonstrate the importance we place on reading.
Writing
At Bishop Bronescombe the development of writing begins with the understanding and application of phonic knowledge to writing words as they sound. Alongside phonic knowledge, correct cursive letter formation is taught and a wide range of opportunities to apply their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes to writing for different purposes are provided in the EYFS. To support the National Curriculum for English from Year 1, we follow a whole school mastery approach to writing through the programme Pathways to Write. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided. Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
An Overview of Pathways to Write
Pathways to Write is designed to equip pupils with key skills to move them through the writing process towards their final outcome. It is built around units of work that follow a mastery approach to the teaching of writing. To support this approach, clear detailed lesson plans and resources are linked to a high-quality text. Pathways to Write ensures engaging and purposeful English lessons. The units can be used thematically to encourage a whole school approach to writing with the opportunity for topics to link across all year groups.
Each unit covers a range of areas in the national curriculum:
- Mastery of vocabulary, grammar and punctuation skills
- Writing a range of genres across a year
- Vocabulary development
- Using a wider range of reading comprehension strategies as a whole class
- Spoken language activities including drama and presentations
- Opportunities for practising previously taught genres
- An extended, independent piece of writing
This process follows three stages:
The Gateway (1-2 lessons)
- Begin at the Gateway with a ‘hook’ session to intrigue and enthuse young writers
- Use objects, people, images or role-play to stimulate questions about the chosen text
- Give pupils the opportunity to predict the text
- Establish the purpose and audience of the writing
- Revisit previous mastery skills and ongoing skills
The Pathway (10 lessons)
- Introduce pupils to three new writing skills from their year group curriculum
- Provide opportunities to practise and apply the skill they have learnt through short and extended writing tasks including character descriptions, poetry, dialogue between characters, fact files or diary entries in role
- Provide opportunities to re-cap and apply previously taught skills
- Challenge greater depth writers through a wider range of tasks e.g. changes to form, viewpoint and audience
Writeaway (4 lessons)
- Section and sequence texts independently or collaboratively
- Create extended pieces of writing over time
- Opportunity to apply mastery skills
- Time for planning, writing, checking, editing, redrafting and publishing
- A fiction or non-fiction outcome will be written (covering a wide range of genres and themes over the year)
- a stimulus for writing which is a book (a range of fiction and non-fiction, including picture books across both key stages and graphic novels).
- an analysis of the written genre to identify the structure and language features required for the purpose and audience of the writing and create a ‘toolkit’ for writing;
- use of role-play, role on the wall, hot-seating, improvisation, discussion and vocabulary banks;
- organising ideas using planning templates or story maps;
- the writing phase, step-by –step using modelled writing and shared writing leading to guided and independent writing.
- Opportunities to assess own writing against the ‘toolkit’ or success criteria proof-read, edit and improve written outcomes.
The transcription skills of spelling and handwriting are taught discretely following the National Curriculum Programme of Study and using additional commercial materials. A cursive script is taught from Foundation Stage and this is modelled by teachers and used in the classroom environment; it is expected that children write using the cursive script. The exception is that children spell words correctly in their written work, use a dictionary, the learning environment or a spelling buddy to find the correct spelling or to make corrections to spellings.
Spoken Language
At Bishop Bronescombe we recognise the vital role that spoken language has in developing learning and understanding across the curriculum. Children are taught to ask and answer questions to increase their understanding; to use spoken language to express their feelings and ideas to use the appropriate spoken language to discuss, explain, justify, hypothesise and analyse across the curriculum. Sentence stems for spoken responses are provided in some curriculum areas, e.g. Maths to support children’s responses.
In reading sessions, children are taught to use appropriate standard English to discuss predictions, inferences and opinions from the texts they are reading and to make recommendations to peers.
Drama activities such as hot seating, role play, and conscience alley allow children provide children with opportunities to express themselves orally in preparation for written tasks and to explore the thoughts and feelings of people and events across the curriculum. Poetry and play performances and presentations across the curriculum to audiences give children the opportunity to practise speaking fluently, audibly, with intonation, expression and using the appropriate level of formality.