Intent

At Ford Primary School we recognise that English has a prominent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English teaches pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, so others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils, therefore, who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised. During their time at Ford Primary School we want our children to learn to confidently articulate themselves, both verbally and in writing, so they can communicate effectively with a variety of different audiences and for a variety of different purposes by utilising their increasing understanding and command of the English language.

Implementation

Our teachers follow the Devon Babcock scheme to help them plan and deliver English lessons. Each English unit is planned around an engaging, age-appropriate key text which often links in with the term’s topic. Our teachers produce an overview sheet for each unit which explicitly shows our children the skills they will be learning about during the unit and examples of these that they can refer to. Opportunities to teach SPaG objectives in a meaningful way, which links to the key text and written outcome for a unit, are utilised. Our teachers ensure that each unit and key text is introduced in an exciting launch lesson, in order to ‘hook’ children in. The written outcome for each unit has a clear audience and purpose so that our children feel motivated to write. Opportunities for our children to share their writing with a wide and varied audience are capitalised upon. 

Each English unit comprises of four stages: book talk, SPaG, shared write, where the teacher models and then an independent write. During the first two stages the children explore the book and look at the language used, the sequence and what makes the story enjoyable to read. There are opportunities to hot-seat and role-play to build their understand and their oracy. They are then taught the punctuation and grammar they need, that is linked to the book. Our teachers then use shared writing sessions to help children in successfully applying the unit’s skills to their own writing to improve the quality of their writing and impact it has upon their readers. Our children then, plan and independently write their own piece of text, using the skills they have been taught. Finally, they are given a variety of opportunities to edit their writing using purple polishing pens and editing toolkits independently, with their peers and with teacher/TA support.

To assist our children in feeling confident when writing down their ideas, our teachers teach regular handwriting and spelling lessons.

We teach daily whole class reading sessions, teaching the children to use the ‘steps for success’ and use a watch me, help me then show me approach to comprehending the texts chosen. We also use accelerated reader to help the children grow a love of reading, have a termly class reader book where we drop everything and read and encourage daily reading at home.

Impact

We want children to enjoy writing and do our best to make writing fun. Every unit is adapted to the individual child’s needs, as are the expectations at the end of the unit.

At Ford Primary School we ensure that, during their time with us, our children are taught, practise and refine the skills needed to use the written and spoken word to communicate effectively with a variety of different audiences for a variety of different purposes.

At Ford Primary School we carefully monitor the impact our teaching of the English curriculum has on each individual child’s progress and attainment. External assessments at the end of each key stage, external moderation and our internal assessments provide detailed information about how well our English curriculum is meeting the needs of our children and inform us of any areas of strength and also areas for development. We explicitly moderate children’s books as a staff once a year. Children’s books are also monitored by the senior leadership team during our standards days and are used as evidence during our pupil premium meetings. Children’s views on their experiences and opinions about their learning and the teaching they receive are sought out by the senior leadership team as a part of standards days.