English at All Saints
Reading
Intent
At All Saints, we want all children to develop a love of reading and encourage everyone to engage in a wide range of texts. Through developing pupils’ decoding and comprehension skills, we aim to develop life-long readers who ask questions and immerse themselves in new worlds.
As a school, we believe that children should be read to during the school day, and that every member of staff should be an advocate for reading. We have worked hard to develop the school curriculum to support children’s enjoyment of reading, placing reading and high-quality texts at the heart of learning.
Implementation
Reading Curriculum Map (This is a live document)
Daily Supported Reader
Daily Supported Reader helps to move all children on in their reading. It is delivered initially throughout the year in Year 1, then introduced into Reception and for the lowest attaining children in Year 2 for maximum impact across the school. It helps children make accelerated progress by working in a coherent and systematic way. Through this approach, all children enjoy daily independent reading in small groups matched to their independent reading level, led by a trained adult. Adults use differentiated lesson guides to move children on and make sound judgements about when to do so. This method has a proven track record of success in raising school reading standards at Key Stage 1.
Destination Reader
Destination Reader is a consistent, structured approach to daily reading sessions in Key Stage 2. It involves daily sessions incorporating whole class modelling prior to the children applying these skills through partner work and independent reading. Children deepen their understanding of the texts they read through the systematic use of a series of strategies and language stems. The approach encompasses the key principles of effective reading provision and fully meets the requirements of the National Curriculum. Class teachers plan to use a range of high-quality texts including fiction, non-fiction and poetry to help build a culture of reading for pleasure and purpose.
Additional Support for Reading
Children who need extra support are identified early and interventions are put in place. Appropriate support is given by the teacher or teaching assistant through daily 1:1 reading, daily supported reader interventions across the school and reading tuition.
Reading at Home
All children are encouraged and rewarded for reading at least five times a week at home. In Year 2 and above, all children use the online programme Accelerated Reader to carefully assess their independent reading levels. All children receive a ZPD level (which is assessed and updated three times a year) to select books within their reading ability. Once the children have finished their book, they complete a reading quiz through our Accelerated Reader online programme. Completing quizzes accurately, will allow children to collect points to gain prizes such as pens and pencils and extra forest school sessions. Children in Year 1 and Reception take home a book closely matched to their phonics stage alongside a book for pleasure and can earn the same prizes as those in Year 2 and above by reading at home every day.
To see our further plan to support reading at home in Key Stage 1, please click here.
Fostering a Love of Reading
We want to foster a love life-long reading so have some wonderful spaces in the school to settle down and read including a lovely library and a reading shed which all children have access to every break and lunch time. We also have a reading prize cabinet and reading vending machine where children can select a range of prizes including brand new books!
Impact
Through our consistent and structured approach to reading at All Saints, pupils have the opportunity to become independent and successful readers who read widely to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live in; to establish a love of reading and to gain knowledge across the curriculum.
What Do Our Children Think About Reading?
"You learn new words and the more you read the more confident you become which means you can read more words. Longer books with trickier words are more interesting!" - Ellie, Year 4
"I like reading with my mummy and daddy - I sit on their lap. They feel proud of my reading." - Dolly, Reception
Writing
Intent
At All Saints we aim for all children to become creative writers with sound grammatical knowledge and a rich imagination. We believe the children should have the opportunity to practise and develop their writing skills and stamina every day. We are dedicated to spoken language underpinning the development of reading and writing and so are passionate about providing language rich environments. Teachers use a combination of rich whole class reading texts and real life writing scenarios to enable pupils to become fully immersed in their writing.
Implementation
The teaching of writing starts in the Early Years setting with mark making. The children are taught the correct pencil grip and explore making marks in a range of media such as paint, sand and shaving foam. There is continuous provision for mark making in the Early Years setting. There is a high focus on the correct letter formation in Reception and this is key for their cursive writing later in their school life.
As children develop through the school, they are given opportunities to practise and improve their writing for a range of purposes and audiences. The basis of our writing progression can be found here. Throughout their time at All Saints, children receive ample opportunity to write in a range of genres such as stories, information reports, instructions, myths and legends and newspaper reports as well as being provided with opportunities to choose their writing. The formal teaching of writing begins at word and sentence level and builds to structuring an extended piece of writing. Children are also taught how to edit effectively and give opportunities to draft and publish their work for real audiences.
Through our English lessons, children experience a range of high-quality and thought-provoking texts every term. The core texts provide the basis of our English curriculum and teachers use a wider range of books and text types in addition to these to ensure every pupil has access to a broad and rich range of books. We also ensure that children are exposed to a number of text types including poetry which can be seen on our poetry progression document here.
We recognise that writing is a complicated process and, therefore, in order for children to succeed, our planning provides a range of scaffolds to support their success. These scaffolds include; rich classroom discussions, the use of Jane Considine's approach 'The Write Stuff', drama and role play, embedded ICT, writing for a range of purposes and audiences, explicit grammar teaching in context, exposure to high quality texts, visual and language scaffolds as well as the systematic teaching of spelling and handwriting.
Impact
Writing at All Saints enables our pupils to write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others as well as write for enjoyment. Our pupils understand that writing has a purpose and value and enjoy letting their creativity flow. All Saints pupils understand the writing process and the worth of each stage of composition and they feel confident to put pen to paper and write for a range of audiences and purposes.
What Do Our Children Think About Writing?
“I like writing because you can write anything based on the book you are reading, and you can make it as exciting as you want. Writing can be very fun because you can use your imagination and make up your own ideas!” - Hattie, Year 3
"I like writing cards to people and knowing lots of letters so I can write shopping lists!" - Maisie, Reception
