During our Whole School Assembly to kick start World Book Day, English Lead Mrs Knott read the story "The Word Collector" which inspired the days costumes. The children all came in dressed as a different word to inspire discussions around new vocabulary. The children in all classes across school, took part in lots of different activities. Including, writing and publishing their own class stories which were then purchased by friends and family. The children were also treated to some Mystery Readers who came into classes to read their favourite stories to the class.

KS2 Spelling Strategies Session

Thank you to all the parents who joined Mrs Knott our English Lead for the KS2 Spelling Strategies Session today. Mrs Knott modelled some of the strategies which are used in school to help children learn new spellings at home. Some of the parents even had a go too!

We are so excited to introduce our Reading Champions. These children will be promoting their love of reading throughout our school. With the help of Mrs Knott and Mrs Elford, they will be running Book Clubs for our children each week, as well as reading and supporting children across all year groups to inspire a love for reading across our school.

Useful Links for Reading at Home

Please see below for a selection of ideas for reading at home. However, if your child would prefer a hard copy, do make use of the local libraries which are still open for Click and Collect services. 

Lots of authors and illustrators are providing online lessons or storytimes again. Click the link below for a list of authors and illustrators plus lots of links to other reading resources.

https://alibrarylady.blog/2021/01/05/reading-for-pleasure-resources-to-help-children-enjoy-books-at-home-2/

LoveReading4Kids is a brilliant source of information about books, and once you have signed up for an account you can read short extracts of most books for free.

National Literacy Trust are providing lots of reading resources including a free book to read each week. 

https://wordsforlife.org.uk/virtual-school-library/

Non-fiction

download the Marvel Comics app and set up a free account. Another brilliant choice for comic book fans is The Pheonix Comic, which offers a few free digital sample issues online.

Non-fiction fans might enjoy Cicada Publishing's Earth Shattering Events - an appealing non-fiction book about natural disasters, which has been recently made available as a free PDF book for children to read during lockdown. Publisher DK has also created an excellent home learning hub, which includes free access to full colour spreads from a number of their popular non-fiction titles. Another good source for non-fiction is BookLife's selection of free non-fiction titles made available as PDF books (a popular starting point is this fact book about space), which parents can access by creating a free account. For poetry fans, we recommend Children’s Poetry Archive as the best place to listen to or read along with an incredible bank of children’s poetry, searchable by theme or poet.

There are also some brilliant children’s magazines available, and most offer sample issues to read online. Why not try the free digital issues of Scoop Magazine, Aquilla, Whizz Pop Bang, The Week Junior or National Geographic Kids?

Online storytime

 Storytime Online hub. The QR codes and links in the document link to story readings on Youtube and all of the books we've chosen are read aloud by their fabulous authors and illustrators.

Audible Stories has made a bank of children’s stories in a number of languages available to listen to for free, including Harry Potter, Kid Normal, Winnie the Pooh and The Tales of Beatrix Potter.

For younger readers

Oxford Owl is a popular recommendation. Once parents have created a free account , readers can access a host of books. The books are available to filter by age group, text type, book band, phonics phase or reading level. A similar resource is Collins Connect, which offers free access to 330+ Collins Big Cat ebooks from pink to lime level, including worksheets and quizzes to use at home.

English Policy

The end of each year expectations for reading, writing, spelling and spoken language for each year group are in the attached documents.

Intent
At Elworth Hall Primary School, we believe that a quality English Curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We have a rigorous and well organised English Curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum for English 2014 to enable all children to:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

These aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum. We will provide the means for children to develop a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. Continuous assessment ensures that we are able to provide targeted support so that all children achieve their potential; we believe that a secure base in English skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.

Implementation

Reading and Phonics:

At Elworth Hall Primary School, we believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers. We strive to promote a love for reading and a passion to explore the benefits of reading. At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts. Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment.

We ensure that children are equipped with the reading skills that they need to access the curriculum as a whole, regardless of their starting point. In Foundation and Key Stage 1, we promote a 'phonics first' approach when children are learning to read at school and at home. In the early stages of reading, the focus of teaching is the development of phonics and the application of this knowledge in reading is taught through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised synthetic phonics programme. Decodable reading books are very closely

matched to the children’s current phonics knowledge and we offer each child many opportunities to practise reading, as well as reinforcing the grapheme-phoneme correspondences that they have already learned. Reading to and with an adult happens three times a week in class as part of the programme. Parents support us in reading with their children at home alongside their phonic decodable book and a book for sharing with an adult each week. We encourage children to read each book at least 5 times a week and focus on decoding, building fluency and develop the children’s comprehension of the text. The decodable books that we use for our reading schemes all follow the same cumulative progression of GPCs.

Children begin to learn to enjoy books and reading as soon as they start our school. They learn to read through learning phonics in a systematic way, which is delivered daily. This is reinforced throughout the day, helping the knowledge to be retained. We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of Term 1 in Foundation, which allows children to make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented. They also learn ‘Common Exception’ words in each phase. Children use these learnt sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Foundation being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4.

​In Year 1, through Phase 5a, b and c, children learn any alternative graphemes and phonemes for the sounds that they have already been taught, as well as additional Common Exception Words. By the end of Year 1, children will be able to decode words to read them and encode words to spell them when writing. In the summer term, children in year 1 will be assessed using the Phonics Screening Check, which is a statutory check to identify whether children understand phonics to an appropriate standard. Children are regularly assessed throughout the year and any children who are not meeting age-related expectations are identified early and are given targeted phonics support in order to bridge any gaps in learning. These include Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence (GPC) recognition, and blending and segmenting support, through small group or 1:1 focussed interventions. These children are closely monitored to ensure that the interventions have an impact on the children’s attainment and progression.

All classes in KS2 follow a structured 4 day approach to whole class reading activities. All sessions are interactive and teachers facilitate speaking and listening opportunities, with children working hard individually. High quality texts and passages are chosen, appropriate to the expectations of the year group or ability of children, and teachers use this to model the application of the agreed reading skills. Children are taught to notice breakdown in reading - identifying vocabulary they don’t understand and strategies to fix breakdown in meaning. Children are taught to relate the text to themselves, previous reading experiences and the world around them. Quality, age-appropriate texts are provided in classroom reading areas and the school library and are supplemented by use of the school library service. In all years, strategies are used to encourage children to love reading and children leave our school with a lifelong love of books.  

Writing and Spoken language:

At Elworth Hall, we aim to inspire the children to be excited about their writing and achieve their full potential across the whole curriculum and are encouraged to write for a purpose. Our children are given opportunities to read, write, speak and listen through a creative and varied curriculum. Children are encouraged to plan, draft and edit their work as part of the writing process.

In the Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, children are encouraged to apply their phonic knowledge to write with independence. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised synthetic phonics programme, to teach our children the core skills of segmenting and blending. We believe that phonics provides the foundations for children to access the whole curriculum. Spelling is taught in specific lessons and encouraged to be applied through independent writing. Grammar is incorporated throughout the English lessons.

Writing at Elworth Hall Primary School links to a ‘quality text’ which facilitates a host of writing, reading and grammar opportunities. Teachers plan a sequence of learning that builds up to a narrative piece of writing. Pupils learn about effective writing through studying examples, modelled writing and scaffolding and are guided through the writing process to independence. Narrative pieces of work focus on fiction, non-fiction or poetry and are delivered using high quality texts to give children in all year groups varied and enticing opportunities for writing. Writing development, grammar, spoken language and handwriting are embedded into lessons and skills are built up through repetition within the units. Lesson sequences build progressively towards an extended piece of writing. Assessment for Learning is embedded in English lessons and children contribute to reviewing the successes in their work and identifying, with support from their teacher, target areas for development to ensure a continuous and individualised approach to improving their work. Teachers use quality texts to hook and engage the children in reading and writing.

Impact
The English curriculum has realised a community of enthusiastic and competent readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their developing English knowledge and skills. Children are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas.  Outcomes of work in both literacy and topic books evidence the high quality of writing and the variety of writing opportunities.