English

Subject Overview

The English curriculum at Frogmore follows a 3-week structure and is taught discreetly each day. Whole class reading is taught separately. These reading sessions expose children to a wide range of age-appropriate highquality texts. The children read and analyse a variety of texts which may be fiction or nonfiction. Texts are carefully selected to provide opportunities to develop comprehension skills and link to all aspects of the curriculum. Alongside English lessons, we provide many opportunities for the children to develop their literacy skills throughout the school day. For children who may need additional support, we run small-group interventions. These may focus on reading comprehension skills, writing skills, pre-teaching of vocabulary, as well as spelling and handwriting intervention. Teachers also lead daily whole-class intervention which focuses on spelling, punctuation and grammar, identified as QSS (Quick SPAG Starter). Phonics is taught using Read, Write, Inc. These 30 minute sessions build on children’s prior learning of Read Write Inc Phonics to teach spelling strategies which they can transfer to their literacy skills across the curriculum. The explicit teaching of handwriting is completed on a weekly basis. In addition, the online platform ‘Spelling Shed’ supports the children at home with their spelling work.

Curriculum Intent

Intent of our English curriculum:

Our curriculum is aligned with the National Curriculum for English 2014 and is designed to nurture and develop children’s love of reading, writing, discussion and performance. We use a wide and evolving range of narrative fiction and poetry to challenge and inspire our children and our use of quality texts enable them to produce quality thinking, quality talk and quality writing.

Our aim is for Frogmore Junior School to be a ‘reading school’, full of avid and enthusiastic readers who have a genuine love of books and believe in the philosophy that books cultivate a life-long love of reading and can build empathy, develop our emotional selves and provide an ever-evolving gateway to knowledge. Our English curriculum aims to help our children learn to:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding

• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information

• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language

• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage

• appreciate a range of diverse characters in books and understand the importance of representation

• write clearly, accurately and coherently; adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

• use discussion in order to think, question and learn

• be competent in the arts of thinking, questioning, speaking and listening,

• be able to articulate clearly their understanding and ideas, with increasing confidence; and develop the ability to reflect and review as knowledge is acquired and considered.

Curriculum Implementation

Implementation of our English curriculum:

READING

How we teach and develop basic reading skills:

At Frogmore Junior School, we deliver Read Write Inc. systematic synthetic phonics programme.

In our phonic sessions, we teach phonemic awareness which is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes (smallest units of sound). The aim of Read Write Inc. is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out (known as blending). Reading is a key tool for life. Our curriculum enables our children to develop a life-long love of reading as well as be ready, at the end of each phase, for the next stage of their education. We aim for all children to become fluent readers, using their phonological knowledge, understanding of vocabulary and comprehension skills across all areas of the curriculum.

We use Accelerated Reader across the school to develop fluency, improve general reading skills and deepen understanding.

We also have the Reading Dog to encourage less confident readers. Every child has a book from our class and school library to read at home with their parents. Children are also encouraged to read their own books when able to and staff look to recommend titles and authors. We strongly encourage the children to read every night and a minimum of 3x weekly. This is recorded in their Reading Records and a record is kept by all teachers. We acknowledge the home-reading efforts of ALL children at least once weekly and those in vulnerable groups at least every other day With regular monitoring of how often the children are reading at home we can contact parents, where necessary, to provide support and encouragement. A trophy is awarded to the class with the highest reading percentage in fortnightly Celebration Assembly.

Each class has its own bookcase so that children are able to choose books from within their classroom. This will include a wider range of fiction and non-fiction, comics, magazines and graphic novels.

How we encourage a love of reading: Challenge, Diversity and Inclusivity

‘Reading is the key to a child’s future; it unlocks their potential and opens up a world filled with possibilitiesâÂ€Â‹'

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Core texts to drive our English curriculum are chosen with care and consideration by teachers and our aim is to challenge, inspire and show representation for all our children during their time at Frogmore. Teachers use real life experiences, personal knowledge and a wide and evolving range of rich texts to excite and inspire pupils; our priority being to focus on the intrinsic enjoyment of reading but also to celebrate and promote all of the many life skills, opportunities and knowledge that reading gives us all, throughout our lives, as children and adults.

Whole class reading texts add an additional layer to this provision and together provide a daily diet of quality, inclusive and diverse books. Time for personal reading for pleasure is also provided at different times across the week. 'A poem a week' is another iniative to promote poetry and performance.

To promote reading for pleasure we hold:

World Book Days are celebrated annually in school. We often choose a whole-school theme or find a new and inventive way to enjoy books. The last few have included book quizzes, short story competitions, ‘Extreme Reads’, ‘Masked Readers’, ‘Bookshelfies’, visiting/virtual story tellers/poets and of course children and staff are encouraged to dress up as their favourite characters from books every year, share their books and their passion.

We also celebrate National Poetry Day with children and staff sharing and performing their favourite poems in class and assembly.

Reading Evenings provide an opportunity for teachers, parents and School Standards Board members to share stories and their love for reading and story-telling with the children. Events are held inside during the winter and outside on the field during the summer. These have been well-supported and enjoyed by many children and often incorporate a book swap or bring & buy event.

We host a ‘Scholastic Book Fair’ once a year and promote this heavily with posters designed by children and book tokens for poster winners in each class.

There are fortnightly story assemblies to all our pupils, showcasing a diverse range of texts with a particular emphasis on picture books. This provides an opportunity to explore a range of genres, authors and themes, all chosen to inspire, enthuse and promote representation in our children.

A story club runs for two terms a year promoting books and stories; including additional opportunities to write.

Our library is well stocked and used by classes on a weekly basis. Children can choose ‘real books’ or use the portal to access e-readers. We have a dedicated librarian who ensures book stock is rotated and supports teachers with books to strengthen curriculum foci.

To further promote reading and encourage children to read a wide range of literature, booklists are available for each year group from LOVEREADING. These links have been sent home and can be accessed on the school website. Classes have reading corners to promote further reading for pleasure opportunities.

WRITING

As our pupils progress through the school:

• their knowledge surrounding the purposes of writing increases, facilitated by the opportunities given and opportunities borne out of the diverse range of texts shared and unpicked together

• children become more self-regulating, skilful and adaptable in their use of different writing processes, including how they plan, draft, revise and edit

• children’s ability and skill to proofread, use a dictionary, and use other spell-checking devices increases over time

• children learn about the different ways in which we are moved to write, inspired and motivated by the wide range of texts they are encouraged to read, thus building their stamina and ultimately, passion for writing,

• through class writing opportunities and school-based and homework projects, they learn how to share their knowledge, opinion & creativity.

All classes use word books to develop their own ‘dictionaries’ of corrected spellings, ‘wow words’ and synonyms. We use Spelling Shed to set weekly spelling lists. These lists form part of weekly homework. Whole school Spelling Bees are run termly. Children are also given opportunities to draft, edit and improve their own work; and we use peer assessment and peer editing to support this. Success criteria are used to help children understand the features of different genres of writing and models are shared by teachers to show good examples. Visualisers are part of every teacher’s toolkit to model their own work, share children’s work and exemplify the editing and redrafting process.

As a school we moderate writing using age-related-expectations, both within our school in year groups, in adjacent year groups and within our local GLF Schools’ cluster. We also participate in ‘No More Marking’ (NMM) which provides another useful tracking and progress tool for each year group.

Writing progress is tracked throughout the school, with particular emphasis on all vulnerable groups and the first 20% children.

ORACY:

Frogmore Juniors follows the National Curriculum guidelines for the teaching of speaking and listening. Children are given lots of opportunities to talk, ask and answer questions and present to an audience during the school day. This includes presentations as part of project work or homework, discussion, debate and role play, paired or group talk. Oracy is explicitly planned in English. Philosophy for Children (P4C) is timetabled weekly and LYFTA assemblies also promote in-depth discussion about a range of topics reflecting the ‘world outside our window’. There are class assemblies across each year and end of year performance in Year 6. We also have weekly singing assemblies and there are class reps for Rights Respecting group, Cyber Ambassadors, Eco Warriors and Class Council who routinely speak to the class and share news or canvas opinion.

Curriculum Impact

Impact of our English curriculum

At Frogmore, children make good progress and develop transferrable skills. We aim that by the end of KS2 all of our children will have made good progress from their starting points. By the time our children are in upper Key Stage 2, a wide variety of writing genres are familiar to them and teaching & learning in English will focus on creativity, developing the writer’s craft, sustained quality writing and the successful manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills. Our children will also become more confident, fluent readers and realise the importance of reading for pleasure along with reading for information and developing their knowledge. As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards are also sound and skills taught in the English lesson are transferred into other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and knowledge and provides a deeper understanding of how to apply grammatical skills to their writing.

What a ‘typical’ lesson looks like:

An English lesson will begin with a QSS (Quick SPAG Starter) and then an element of retrieval or revisiting of previous learning in the form of a daily review. Planning then promotes oracy and Speaking and Listening - and children will regularly get time to discuss using talk partners. Children will build progressively in their learning across the 3 week unit, resulting in an extended written outcome. After SPAG and reviewing previous learning, new learning is introduced in small steps. Technology is often used to support and scaffold new learning and there is lots of teacher modelling and my-turn, your-turn time. Self, peer and teacher editing is taught, alongside verbal feedback. Teachers use visualisers to share work and practise. Teachers model their expectations in writing to illustrate and support what children can aspire to as we build towards final pieces of extended writing and independent practice. Regular plenaries are used to address misconceptions and next steps and to guide student practice.

Teaching & Learning

ENGLISH CHECKLIST

Checklist of expectations for English:

English Books – to be used daily in English lessons & whole class reading (WCR) lessons:

• A ruling off (ruler) following the previous entry, filling spaces as appropriate. Use of long date, underlined (ruler).

• Subheading QSS together with a simple but specific focus of the QSS (Quick Spag Starter) Eg: Pronouns – with a related activity/written response. Sub-heading underlined with a ruler.

• For whole class Reading - a simple WCR Heading together with either page numbers (Eg: WCR Pgs33-35 and/or simple title/chapter no./title) again underlined with a ruler.

• In response to WCR - regular evidence of independent or guided work – not exclusively ‘answers to questions’ but a variety of responses/outcomes over time.

• English specifically – a simple, separate title or learning intention, again underlined with a ruler - with an outcome in response to this title/learning intention.

• Consistent evidence of agreed marking criteria, to provide effective feedback, with some evidence of children then responding to marking. Teacher pens: Green for growth – Pink for positive comments.

• Regular highlighting of spelling errors in green, as appropriate, for children to address in English books AND word books.

• Regular opportunities to write independently, at relative length, with evidence of PP (purple-pen) for self-reviewing and editing. Use of I or VF or G to indicate level of independence in longer writing.

• Please add a note if no work is in the book with a brief reason e.g. 2.6.22 absent/ELSA etc.

Reading Records:

• A teacher acknowledgement at least weekly – for all children (eg;stamp/signature/brief comment).

• A daily acknowledgement by an in-school adult for our vulnerable children.

• The expectation a parent/adult at home signs the record a minimum of three times a week .

• Evidence/record in class of ‘where children are’ in respect of the former, each week. Word Books & Spelling:

• Word Books being used to build up an A-Z of words/vocab linked to spelling errors in English books (and others if you wish) to include synonyms etc where appropriate. There may also be ‘wow words’ or ‘topic words’ that you/the children wish to add.

• A folder for each child to hold their weekly work re. the spelling pattern explored in Spelling Shed

Classroom Environment:

• Up-to-date working walls that reflect learning/texts being covered in English and WCR, including relevant *themes.

• A SPAG display, including relevant vocabulary.

• Weekly spellings and half termly sayings on display.

• The class text-driver and end-of-day story ‘advertised’. Year group reading and writing targets on display.

• A book area with a range of texts on offer including link texts to chosen whole-class texts.

• A piece of high-quality writing on display in the classroom – changed termly. Planning:

• English planning on the server weekly, including an oracy/sentence based focus and writing outcomes for that week/fortnight/unit using the agreed format. LO’s must be clear for all learners.

• Whole Class Reading planning on the server weekly, reflecting a range of tasks and response opportunities to the whole-class text using the agreed format.

• A Year Group overview to encompass all aspects of English taught – across the year - including *themes that underpin the learning through each class text used, termly/ ½ termly.

At FJS we strive to secure opportunities for all children, to remove barriers to learning in order to improve outcomes and work together with parents and children to create a collaborative partnership. We are a RR school and inclusive provision is at the heart of what we do. It runs through the values of the school, the curriculum design and outcomes. Our Universal Offer encompasses provision for all pupils and targeted and specialist support is planned and monitored for key pupils. Teachers are responsible and accountable for progress and development for all pupils including those pupils with additional needs. Our team provides high quality teaching, modelling and scaffolding, effective questioning and a balance between guided and independent practice. All staff have high aspirations for our pupils and provide an inclusive environment, which removes barriers to learning.

Safeguarding

Texts are carefully chosen to be appropriate whilst at the same time challenging, thought-provoking and as much as possible, representative of our increasingly diverse school community. Technology resources used to support learning are also selected with care and consideration at all times. Any topics, questions and answers in English lessons that provoke the need for follow-up or raise a safeguarding question will be shared with appropriate staff, and logged on CPOMS.

Home Learning

Spelling Shed is the online platform we use to support children at home with spelling. Across the school we use reading records and the expectation is to have these signed a minimum of three times each week by a parent or adult at home. Children also have access to our E-Book virtual library. Half-termly homework offers children a range of topic-based choices children can choose from to complete. This includes several that provide opportunities to grow English-based skills.