English

INTENT

At Chiseldon Primary and Nursery School, we recognise that speaking and listening allows pupils to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Speaking and listening activities also enable pupils to both acquire knowledge and build on what they already know. Having all the skills of language are essential to allowing pupils to participate fully as members of society. Pupils who learn to speak and listen, fluently and confidently are at an advantage in their future lives.

We aim to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong understanding of the spoken word and to communicate and develop a love of communication through speaking and listening for a range of purposes for enjoyment.

Through teaching of speaking and listening and across the school curriculum we will:

• Meet the requirements of the national curriculum programmes of study for speaking and listening
• Provide numerous opportunities to listen and respond appropriately to others
• Provide a broad balanced curriculum with lots of opportunities for children to ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
• Build and enhance the range of vocabulary which is used when speaking
• Equip pupils with the skills to become confident, audible and fluent speakers in a range of situations
• Develop children’s ability to effectively articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
• Increase attention and active participation in collaborative conversations
• Equip pupils with an increasing command of Standard English
• Encourage and provide many opportunities for children to participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates
• Encourage pupils to discuss, consider and evaluate different viewpoints

IMPLEMENTATION

At Chiseldon Primary and Nursery School we teach speaking and listening skills as part of English lessons although these skills are applied and practised across the curriculum and through a range of curriculum enrichment activities. The speaking and listening skills, taught in each class, build on the skills taught in previous years, allowing children to continuously build on their skills. Our expectations are high and we aim to equip children to use speaking and listening skills with a vital throughout their everyday lives both academically and socially.

We recognise that it is vitally important to increase children’s vocabulary so they are able to understand what they hear in the world around them and allow them to express themselves in more effective ways. As children move through the school, from Foundation Stage to Year 6, they are taught the vocabulary which allows them to move from describing their immediate world and feelings to developing a broader, deeper and richer vocabulary to discuss abstract concepts and a wider range of topics. There is a focus on ensuring the understanding of context and instructional words (compare, predict, arrange, prepare). Therefore, we ensure that children are exposed to a wide range of vocabulary that enables them to do this effectively.

As pupils progress through the school they are taught to develop their competence in spoken language and listening to enhance the effectiveness with which they are able to communicate across a range of contexts and to a range of audiences. All children have the opportunity to work in groups of different sizes – in pairs, small groups, large groups and as a whole class. They are taught understanding of how to take turns and when and how to participate constructively in conversations and debates. During Foundation Stage, the children learn the vital first skills from the Foundation Stage curriculum. In Key Stage 1, children often need higher levels of modelling and scaffolding and support to manage group discussions. As children move into Key Stage 2, the skills they have learnt can be applied more independently and they can take greater control for managing group discussions and the focus shifts to the ability to listen and build on the ideas of others and the complexity of the types of task increase. In Upper Key Stage 2, there are further opportunities to take part in speaking and listening activities, through inter-school debating, presentations and events.

Children have many opportunities to perform to a large audience and to learn and practise the skills required and these performances become more complex and less supported as the children move through the school. All children perform in a class assembly every year. Additionally, they perform in a nativity play during Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. During Key Stage 2, all children will take part in a Key Stage 2 production every year allowing them to gain the required skills to take on the larger roles at the end of the key stage.

Across the school, speaking and listening is taught through a variety of activities and is often linked to a high quality class text or topic. All pupils receive feedback on their spoken language and listening so they can improve their knowledge and skills and develop their use of effective spoken language. Children who are struggling with speaking and listening skills receive additional support, additional intervention and outside agency support is accessed when required.

IMPACT

Children will leave Chiseldon Primary School being literate. They will be able to listen carefully and attentively and speak clearly. They will be able to ask deep and meaningful questions to improve their understanding and take part in collaborative discussions. They will be confident in speaking in a range of situations, in front of a range of audiences and be able to express their ideas clearly. Children will have understanding of and the ability to use a range of vocabulary, which will mean they can fully understand what they are hearing and they are able to articulate what they want to say. They will be equipped, not only with the skills to speak and listen effectively using standard English but to be able to apply these in their everyday lives and in their next stages of education- for research, information and to explore the world. The most important impact we want for our children is that they develop confidence and a love of communication through speaking and listening.

Writing Curriculum Intent

At Chiseldon our approach is to have consistency and progression from Nursery through to Year Six to provide all children with a high-quality education in English. Writing is a fundamental part of this, with many opportunities provided across the curriculum to improve and apply these skills so that children develop a clear understanding of the writing process and how effective writing impacts its reader. Spelling is a continued focus, with the addition of key vocabulary being introduced and embedded within the currciulum. Children need to learn spelling rules, patterns and the need for care in spellings to allow others to understand. Here at Chiseldon we are very proud of our pupils handwriting and take particular care in our cursive/joined-up handwriting style. We use letterjoin as the basis for our handwriting policy (please see the Handwriting tab for more details).

Writing Curriculum Implementation

Motivating children to write using 'The Write Stuff'by Jane Considine, allows pupils to have clear assigned goals which allow their confidence to grow. "The Write Stuff" follows a method called "Sentence Stacking" which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing.  An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken in to 3 learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:

1. Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.

1. Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.

1. Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.

Children are challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’ which requires them to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.

"The Write Stuff" uses three essential components to support children in becoming great writers

The three zones of writing :-

• IDEAS - The FANTASTICs uses a child friendly acronym to represent the nine idea lenses through which children can craft their ideas.
• TOOLS - The GRAMMARISTICS. The grammar rules of our language system and an accessible way to target weaknesses in pupils grammatical and linguistic structures.
• TECHNIQUES - The BOOMTASTICs which helps children capture 10 ways of adding drama and poetic devices to writing in a vivid visual.

Spellings are taught as an independent lesson either as Sounds Write, our dedicated phonics programme, which is taught daily in KS1 or as a spelling rule/pattern lesson every Friday in KS2. These spellings are also sent home to ensure children have the opportunity to practise before the following week's spelling test. As well as this, children are expected to learn the National Curriculum statutory spellings throughout the year and to celebrate this learning we have a Spelling Bee at the end of every long term.

Children are given the opportunity to use these different skills every other week with an independent 'Mystery Box' stimulus which they then edit and improve this gives them the opportunity to evaluate the effectivness of their writing.

Writing Curriculum Impact

Children at Chiseldon will have a concept of how to build, plan and complete a piece of writing. They will have a clear view of what high quality writing looks like and can improve it based on editing and then feedback. We aim to ensure children are confident and writing as readers.

Here at Chiseldon we are very proud of our pupil’s handwriting and take particular care in our cursive/joined-up handwriting style. We use Letter-join as the basis of our handwriting policy that covers all the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum.

Nursery

• Sit in the correct position and hold a pencil correctly to allow fluid movement of the nib.

• Improve fine and gross motor skills by enjoying drawing pre-cursive patterns in a variety of writing materials such as modelling clay, air writing, sand trays, felt pens, crayons, pencils, IWB, iPads/tablets.
• Understand the language need to describe pencil movements in preparation of letter formation

Reception

• Hold a pencil in an effective manner for writing and be encouraged to correct any errors in grip or stature.
• Understand that letters are written on a base line and that all cursive letters ‘start on the line’ and ‘end with a hook’.
• Begin to form some recognisable joined-up cursive letters, capital letters and numerals.
• Have an understanding of writing their own name.
• Understanding different shaped letter families.

KS1

• Write legibly using upper and lower case letters with correct joins.
• Ensure that letters sit on the base line and are consistent in size with ascenders and descenders that are the correct length and formation.
• Leave the correct space between words.
• Form capital letters and use where appropriate.
• Form numerals that are consistent in size and sit on the base line.
• Begin to form printed letters and understand when they are to be used.
• Improve the speed of writing and begin to write automatically so promoting creativity in independent writing.

KS2

Improve quality, speed and stamina of handwriting.

• Quality: Ensure letters are consistently sized with equal word spacing and that ascenders and descenders are parallel and do not touch words on the lines above and below.
• Speed: Improve speed of handwriting to allow creative writing to take precedence over the task of handwriting and be able to take ‘quick notes’ at a faster pace.
• Stamina: Have the strength and mobility to be able to write for longer periods of time without fatigue.
  

Early Reading and Phonics Intent

We understand that the skill of reading allows pupils to access all areas of the curriculum as well as the world around them. We also believe that reading should bring pleasure and experiences that cannot be achieved elsewhere; entering new worlds, meeting people from history and understanding a range of view points and emotions.

We teach Synthetic Phonics and use the Sounds Write programme.

Early Reading and Phonics Implementation

Pupils have the opportunity to apply their developing phonic knowledge and skills through shared reading and writing across all subjects. For one to one reading both at home and school children have fully decodable books that are closely matched to the phonemes (sounds) they are learning in class. We use the Dandelion Series of books supplemented with decodable books from other schemes.

https://www.sounds-write.co.uk/

Pupils in Nursery begin to take wordless books home to encourage an engagement and love of books straight away. At the same time they are looking at the first Unit of Sounds Write. This learning is then developed further as they progress to Foundation Stage Two, where we continue to give children the best start we can by teaching them to read as soon as possible so we can provide them with the skills they need for the future. Their phonic knowledge continues to be developed as they work through the Sounds Write programme both reading the sounds and spelling them to help develop this link and understanding.

The teaching of phonics continues to progress through into Year One where children are then ready to take their Phonics Screening Check. This consists of 20 real and 20 pseudo (nonsense) words. Children use their decoding skills to read these. Children who do not meet the required standard in Year One will re-take this again in Year 2 after they have had a chance to further consolidate their learning. Please see below for further information:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-sample-materials-and-training-video/phonics-screening-check-structure-and-content-of-the-check

Early Reading and Phonics Impact

Our early reading and phonics teaches all key elements of conceptual understanding, factual knowledge and the three essential skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation necessary for learning to read and spell. At Chiseldon we aim for all children to achieve the automaticity that underlines the fluency of every succesful reader.

Reading Curriculum Intent

At Chiseldon we believe the link between reading and writing is strong and reading is prioritised as an intrinsic part of teaching and learning. We understand that the skill of reading allows pupils to access all areas of the curriculum as well as the world around them. We also believe that reading should bring pleasure and experiences that cannot be achieved elsewhere; entering new worlds, meeting people from history and understanding a range of viewpoints and emotions.

Reading Curriculum Implementation

Reading is taught across the curriculum and is embedded within a range of subjects. Explicit reading sessions are taught across the week and may include a focus on a specific text or maybe part of reading to support another subject e.g. Science, History. Planned reading sessions (Book Talk) aim to develop an understanding of a text, as well as encourage improved fluency when reading for pleasure or to support learning in other areas. We actively take the opportunity to develop children's understanding of vocabulary, across both fiction and non-fiction texts, as well as linking their understanding of vocabulary to other curriculum areas including topics and spelling patterns.

Research shows that children who read daily develop reading fluency and become more confident able writers at a quicker rate. Therefore, we believe that the most important thing parents can do at home, to help their children achieve at school, is to share books with them.

We encourage children to read daily at home and try to ensure that those who do not get a daily read at home have one in school. All children's reading is celebrated individually with our '30 reads' prizes being given by the Head and Deputy Head.

Recommended Reads - Link to The Book Trust

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/booklists/1/100-best-0-5/

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/booklists/1/100-best-books-6-8/

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/booklists/1/100-best-books-9-11/

Book Talk - The Reading Rainbow

Book Talk

Children read a carefully selected, engaging text for one session a week, this focuses on accuracy, reading with expression as well as reading for meaning and also gives them a chance to get 'excited' about books. We then continue to develop their understanding of the reading through three further Book Talk sessions focusing on 'The Reading Rainbow' where discussion of the text is a key element. Following the discussion the children write about an aspect of the text each week using the 'STYLISTICS' and 'ANALYTICS', these look in depth at; the language used, its purpose, similarities to other texts, the impact of the text on the reader, as well as giving them the opportunity to voice their own opinions.

The Love of Reading

As a school we also share our love of reading at the end of the day, where every class sits and staff share a class reading book, these are high quality texts that allow us to model our enthusiasm for reading and create magic and excitement around the special joy of reading a good book. This time also allows children to enjoy and understand texts beyond their own reading ability, conditions the brain to associate reading with pleasure and plants a desire to read.

The Reading Impact

Children at Chiseldon will have a clear view of how to articulate and demonstrate their understanding of what they are reading. Pupils will have the critical language to express themselves and use appropriate book based language. This will be coupled with children becoming life-long readers who choose to read for pleasure. We believe in the development of a sustainable reading culture, underpinned by a whole school commitment, which is understood and supported by the full school community.

Research shows that children who read daily develop reading fluency and become more confident able writers at a quicker rate. Therefore we believe that the most important thing parents can do at home, to help their children achieve at school, is to share books with them.

We encourage children to read daily at home and try to ensure that those who do not get a daily read at home have one in school. All children's reading is celebrated individually with our '30 reads' prizes being given by the Head and Deputy Head at break times for those children that take their Reading Records to them with their records signed. They are also encouraged to talk about what they have been reading at the same time.