Reading
Our English approach is a reading and writing programme devised to accelerate and challenge children’s reading and writing abilities. It initially lays strong foundations in both oracy and English with Nursery and Reception children and goes on to provide systematic teaching throughout the primary years. This provides a wide range of opportunities for children to explore and develop phonic knowledge and comprehension strategies; develop vocabulary and spelling; improve grammatical awareness; analyse whole texts; and develop writing in a range of genres, all whilst exposing children to a wide range of interesting, bright and diverse range of literature.
Key features of the Reading curriculum:
- Roots - This Key Stage One programme builds on the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics in Reception. The four basic components of Roots consist of Fast-Track Phonics, Shared Stories, Story Telling and Retelling, and Writing.
- Wings – This Key Stage Two programme has a strong focus on reading for fluency and comprehension. The main aim of Wings is to give children a love of reading and create fluent and confident readers by the end of Year 6, well-able to clarify and question a range of texts. Wings supports and challenges both basic and more competent readers. It develops their skills through reading a wide range of carefully selected literature including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
- Language development – our supportive model of language development with a heightened emphasis on speaking first and mastering this runs alongside our understanding of children’s development at every stage of their education with us. Sentence stems are developed and aid understanding of the learning process, expectation and application for all children.
Writing
- Writing is taught across 2 different areas within the curriculum – the skills within English lessons and the ability to apply their skills within the text they are reading & across the Wider Curriculum through applied writing demonstrating language and knowledge taught.
- Expectations of writing are highlighted within our progressive writing guidance for all year groups.
- Teachers are provided with clear guidance on the progression of their writing development.
- Green models are written by teachers to use as models to highlight misconceptions, specific aspects of grammar and the expectation of writing.
- Moderation takes place throughout phase meetings and within one staff meeting within each half term – this aids the progressive understanding of children’s skills, gaps and strengths across year groups and the academy as a whole.
- Using the same text from English lessons or the green model, teachers plan a learning sequence for writing.
- This begins with identifying the purpose for writing – to entertain, to inform, to persuade or to discuss.
- The skills needed for each writing purpose are built and the children have time to practice and consolidate this learning collaboratively as a class or within teams.
- When the children are ready to write they then begin drafting in their English or Applied Writing books. They are reminded that their work is in draft form so they are ready to edit and improve.
- After conferencing with the teacher, the child is then expected to begin the work again - building on and improving their work based on the conversation with their teacher. If the teacher is unable to speak to them in that lesson, they are expected to respond to feedback the following writing lesson.
- The cycle of write, correct, improve, practice is encouraged to continue throughout a unit of work.
Key features of the Writing curriculum
- Clarity over what makes successful, age-appropriate writing
- Using writing progression grids to support teachers in which key skills must be taught in each year group.
- Such expectations are maintained using high quality models written by teachers during planning and created in lessons through high quality modelled and shared writing with the children to ensure that children are exceptionally clear of outcomes.
- Key stage 1 and 2 moderators working across the school to moderate writing and review next steps/writing targets for each year group.
- High expectations around key skills: spelling and grammar
- Embedded in our writing curriculum is the application of age-appropriate spelling and grammatical skills. Turnham now have a Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling (GPS) overview in place for Years 1-6 which has been mapped out in light of national curriculum expectations for spelling and grammar. Explicit GPS sessions are taught daily across the school.
- Opportunities for age-appropriate writing are mapped out in Applied Writing in Wider Curriculum across the academic year. This ensures that children are exposed to a range of genres and are able to consolidate and apply knowledge across the curriculum through their writing.
- In English, children’s writing outcomes are tailored to their specific needs and individual targets.
- A GPS glossary has been created to ensure the consistent use of terminology across the school.
- High expectations around key skills: phonics
- Phonics is taught systematically from Nursery and through to Key Stage 2 as appropriate.
- Staff are expected to be experts in their field and model the application of segmenting sounds to write phonetically plausible words with appropriate age groups.
- Such skills are revisited in Key Stage 2 using clarification strategies to support children in writing new words.
- Cursive continuous handwriting - Children at Turnham Academy learn continuous cursive handwriting and are encouraged to join up their letters at the earliest stages of writing.
Delivery
Collaboration
- Talk tasks in groups or pairs to develop understanding
- Editing and improving writing based on peer review
Communication
- Accurate and appropriate vocabulary is used by all
- Stem sentences are available and referred to in order to provide clarity
Curiosity
- High quality, engaging and context - driven texts
- Children have the opportunity to explore why authors have written in particular ways and magpie this for their own writing.