Our Intent

At Fordley, we believe English forms the basis for our development, relationships and our understanding of the world around us. The study of English is key to our personal growth and, through the development of effective written and spoken communication, it is the foundation for all learning. The ability to communicate effectively, confidently and with clarity is crucial in school, but also in becoming an effective participant in our wider society. Our English curriculum is designed to provide our children with ‘mirrors’ to reflect upon themselves and their own personal development, as well as ‘windows’ to a diverse range of characters, cultures and traditions in order to prepare them for an ever-diversifying society and a more interconnected world. Overall, English allows us to develop our cultural understanding of the world and will support our pupils in ‘Aiming Higher.’

Reading and Phonics at Fordley Primary School

Intent

At Fordley, we value reading as a key life skill, and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We believe reading is key for academic success. Every member of staff at Fordley understands that our intention is for every child to leave our school as a successful and accomplished reader. To ensure this, teachers plan well sequenced, coherent, ambitious reading lessons specifically designed in a bespoke way to cater for the needs of all children in our school.

Phonics implementation

We understand that in order for children to begin to become successful readers, systems must be in place from the beginning of the children’s learning journey at Fordley.

In the Early Years and throughout Key Stage One, we teach phonics using a systematic, synthetic approach. We teach with fidelity to the Read, Write Inc programme, which is a DfE accredited phonics scheme. Read, Write Inc is a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words. As part of this, children have daily phonics sessions in small groups where they participate in speaking, listening and spelling activities that are matched to their developing needs. Fully-trained teachers and teaching assistants draw upon observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are challenged. Furthermore, they liaise with the Phonics Lead in order to identify children who may need additional support. Children work through the different phases, learning and developing their phonics sounds and knowledge. Children are formally assessed every six weeks to allow for regrouping. Children who are falling behind in their phonics are given one-to-one additional tuition a minimum of three times per week to target specific gaps in their phonic knowledge. This is reviewed weekly. Key Stage One also ensure that each child is heard read at least once per week by an adult.

We know that in order for children to overlearn and achieve reading success at home, their home school reading books must be matched to their phonic ability. Children from Reception to Year 2, where appropriate, are given a home school reading book each week, matched precisely to their current phonic knowledge. We encourage families to read with their child through various incentives such as ‘Reading Rewards’ where children earn bookmarks and books as a reward for reading at home.

In Key Stage 2, children are also given a weekly reading book for home that matches their reading/phonic ability. Children who did not pass the Phonics Screening Check in Years 1 or 2, continue to receive phonically appropriate home school reading books. In addition to this, children who are identified as needing bespoke phonic/reading input are targeted through Read, Write Inc during whole class guided reading sessions.

Reading implementation

In KS1, we follow the RWI phonics programme daily. Once children are fluent readers and have completed the scheme, children move on to RWI Comprehension which allows them to develop their comprehension of texts to prepare for KS2 guided reading sessions.

In KS2, guided reading lessons take place daily which promotes a love for reading. Each reading lesson follows a small steps approach throughout, in line with Rosenshine’s Principles, to reduce cognitive overload and to allow children to practise and memorise the components necessary for reading.

A segment of each guided reading lesson is directed to fluency practice. Teaching focuses on a short section of text prioritising the key fluency aspects of accuracy, automaticity and prosody. This commences with teacher modelling and pupil tracking before paired work takes place using a variety of techniques including: echo reading, choral reading, paired reading, partner reading and A Reader’s Theatre (EEF). During paired work, teacher focus will be directed towards the lowest 20% of readers to focus on building their reading accuracy and automaticity. These readers are identified from termly reading assessments which are moderated by the English Leader who identifies target children.

The next section of the reading lesson is directed to reading comprehension. During this, children will be exposed to a rich text which has been carefully selected for its content, vocabulary and for the context of the school by the English Lead to ensure progression. Some high-quality texts have been chosen in partnership with other subject leads to allow children to read for a purpose and to make cross-curricular links where relevant, however, the first and foremost priority is always literary merit. There is a strong emphasis on children reading a wide range of texts, with a variety of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays covered across the course of a year.

Additionally, we provide a range of reading enrichment, including visiting theatre visits, library visits and book fairs in order to further develop a love for reading as well as children take home home/school reading books once per week. Outside of English lessons, no opportunity is missed for children to read in other subjects. We firmly believe in reading to learn, as well as learning to read. Children will encounter new vocabulary through reading a wide range of texts in the English curriculum and wider curriculum. High-quality picture books are used throughout all year groups and the curriculum to support the development of vocabulary.

At Fordley, we believe that reading is the foundation for all learning. Therefore, where we have identified children are not making sufficient progress, targeted interventions are rapidly implemented in order to accelerate progress. This includes phonics interventions for children who have gaps in phonetic knowledge and bespoke dyslexia interventions.

Phonics and reading impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for all children to become fluent readers by the end of key stage one. This way, key stage two guided reading can focus on developing children’s fluency and comprehension with increasingly complex texts. This has been evidenced through our phonics screener check data.

Through guided reading sessions, our children become confident and capable readers who show a love of books and stories. Children talk with understanding about texts, read with clarity, confidence and enthusiasm independently, ask questions and explain their own thought process during reading.

This is highly demonstrated through pupil voice, with quotes including:

• ‘I loved reading Wildboy. I really enjoyed the fact that you do not find out who the killer is until the end. I loved the twists and turns and the mystery.’ (Year 5 pupil)
• ‘I enjoyed Greek Mythology. My favourite story was Theseus and the Minotaur because it was exciting and had battle scenes.’ (Year 4 pupil)
• ‘I really enjoyed the Ice Palace because I loved the exciting characters in it like Starjik. The story took you on a journey to a new land, but I would have liked a different ending.’ (Year 3 pupil)

Additionally, children leave Fordley having experienced a breadth of literary-rich texts which provide a solid foundation for them to be highly-prepared for the KS3 curriculum and beyond. A staff survey conducted in May 2023 found that 100% of staff agree that all children are making good progress in reading. In addition, staff stated:

• The Floella Benjamin unit was very insightful for the children as they didn't know who she was and the challenges she faced were very eye-opening and educational for them.
• Text themes have provided good opportunities to open up further conversations about culture and stereotypes in a constructive manner.
• The new way of guided reading has been great. Engagement is higher and it allows children to become immersed in the reading.

This is also highly evidenced through our reading data for KS2.

Speaking, listening and Writing at Fordley Primary School

Intent

It is our intent at Fordley Primary School to provide pupils with a high-quality education in English teaches pupils to verbally communicate and write fluently so that they can convey their ideas and emotions to others effectively.

Implementation

At Fordley, our speaking, listening and writing curriculums are directly linked through the class text. This allows children to draw upon the high-quality writing of a published author when they complete their own extended writes.

Writing is taught using the Talk for Writing approach. Talk for Writing enables children to develop an awareness of audience, purpose and context, and gives them an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar through the imitation, innovation and invention stages. Lessons are taught through a series of logical steps beginning with word level to widen vocabulary, moving on to punctuation and grammar to aid sentence structure and finally to extended cohesive writing. Teacher modelling is used constantly throughout units to enable children to develop the metacognitive strategies required in order to write extended pieces of text. Teachers constantly use Rosenshine’s retrieval strategies to revisit prior knowledge from both previous units and previous year groups, ensuring this knowledge has a solid foundation and addressing any misconceptions before it is then built upon.

To develop engagement, children write for a real purpose as much as possible, including writing letters to real people, publishing their own stories to read to younger children and performing their own poetry to an audience. We also have ‘writing for pleasure’ lessons which occur at least once per half term, where children are given a stimulus and allowed to write purely for their own pleasure.

Writing fluency is constantly developed and re-visited. In Year 1, children focus heavily on the component part of writing to ensure that this is a solid foundation for future learning. This includes: posture and pencil grip, letter formation and handwriting, oral story composition, hold a sentence/dictation, punctuation and spelling.  Children with SEND may also need to focus for longer periods on component parts to ensure success in the writing process.

In KS2, children are introduced to joined handwriting using the Letterjoin scheme which is modelled by the teacher and practised continuously. Children revisit correct letter formation and joins when misconceptions are identified. Additionally, Spelling Shed is used as a scheme across the school to embed spelling knowledge which ensures coverage of orthography, morphology and etymology.

At Fordley, we know that speaking and listening are essential skills for life. Speaking and listening are threaded through our reading curriculum as children debate, explain and articulate ideas in partners, small groups and large groups daily. Additionally, we have sequenced speaking and listening units in our writing curriculum which occur within every year group. These units have as much importance as writing units, but often have an outcome which is performed rather than written. Children embody characters within plays, perform poems and create their own presentations and arguments.

Impact

Through our writing approach, children will develop an authentic, personal voice, style and stamina and range as a writer. We aim for children to enjoy writing expressively and imaginatively or informatively for a purpose. We aim for children to be able to articulate how their writing is improving and what they are learning to do now which will improve it further. This is evidenced in lessons, as well as in books (example below from a Year 5 pupil).

Through our emphasis on speaking and listening, we aim for our children to be able to articulate and their views with clarity, concision and expression. This is evidenced through our children winning competitions such as the regional Learning Trust’s climate strategy, where children delivered a winning presentation which was recorded and played at United Nation’s COP22.

We aim for children to enjoy performing, embodying a character and taking part in drama. This is evidenced through the various productions children take part in across the year, as well as with additional experiences provided which enrich the curriculum. The photos below evidence visiting theatre company shows as well as workshops which take place with theatre companies such as Kitchen Zoo, who explored performance poetry including the works of Edward Lear.

We also aim for our children to write with a clear sense of purpose, understanding the empowering nature of high-quality literature. Powerful writing can enrich local communities and inspire readers. In Year 4, children write poetry about the impact of pollution in our local community and perform their compositions at the Fordley Planta to community volunteers.

Other units of learning allow older pupils to produce pieces of writing which are shared with our younger pupils. This instils a real sense of purpose to writing as well as sharing a love for reading across our school.

Ultimately, we aim for children to leave Fordley with the necessary skills to express themselves both verbally and in written form. This will enable them to be highly-prepared for the KS3 curriculum and beyond.

Read Write Inc