‘We Care, We Share, We Value’

English

What makes a good English pupil at Holy Cross?

A passion for reading and writing, an ability to think and work independently, an ability to persevere, an enquiring mind, a good knowledge of grammar, an ability to share ideas, is able to attempt new things and explore creativity. The children will demonstrate traits from our Learner Profile, including being inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, risk takers, caring, balanced, reflective and resilient.

 

English: Reading at Holy Cross

Intent

Encourage and provide the opportunity for all children to read widely and often for both pleasure and information

Inspire a love, enthusiasm and passion for reading within the school, children and parents.

Allow children to engage critically with a wide range of different genres of literature so they can appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.

Support children in developing a range of decoding and comprehension skills so that they can read fluently and with understanding to access the curriculum.

To fully equip children with the basic reading skills they need to enable them to be successful beyond primary school.

To develop children’s understanding of language and vocabulary so that they can fully understanding the deeper meaning of texts.

Provide high quality texts and authors that feed pupils’ imagination and inspire wonder, joy and curiosity.

To develop children who are confident with: tackling unfamiliar words, retrieving and inferring answers from the text, discussing and evaluating the authors’ language and structural choices and explaining the meaning of words in context.

Implementation

High quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs.

Regular green vocabulary feed forward marking to help develop children’s language.

Reading is highly valued and included daily as a part of children’s learning.

Teach explicit strategies for tackling questions.

Displays promote reading and support children’s contextual understanding of vocabulary.

Accurate half termly assessment through the use of Learning Ladders. Supported by Testbase, Twinkl and NFER formal assessments to ensure application of skills.

Workshops and Rock up and Read to engage parents.

Opportunities to develop through extra-curricular e.g. book club and phonics club.

High quality texts are available for children to access in the library, classrooms, home reading schemes and via Oxford Owl and Reading Planet online.

Lessons to include links to language to develop vocabulary and adults to model use of adventurous language.

Guided reading, individual reading and book talk are completed daily.

Following a clearly sequenced and progressive program of study based on the National Curriculum objectives.

Impact

Children have high levels of oracy and talk confidently about their learning in reading using appropriate and technical vocabulary.

Children develop their imaginations and actively engage with a range of different texts enthusiastically.

Children confidently apply their reading skills across other areas of learning.

Outcomes at the end of each Key Stage is at least in line or above National and progress is at least good.

Children will read daily at home to embed skills and knowledge.

Children have an understanding of culture and history in relation to literature as well as how books across different cultures differ.

Children have a widened vocabulary and can apply strategies confidently to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Prepared for the next stage of their learning and reading in their daily lives.

Children enjoy reading lessons and are confident to read aloud in front of others and discuss their understanding of the text.

Demonstrate a love or appreciation of reading and talk confidently about a range of literary genres and authors.

 

 

English: Writing at Holy Cross

Intent

Encourage and provide the opportunity for all children to flourish and shine in their writing.

For children to write in a variety of styles and contexts

Inspire a love, enthusiasm and passion for writing within the school, children and parents

Allow children to engage critically with a wide range of different genres of literature so they can appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage

Support children in developing a range of segmenting and composing skills so that they can write confidently and independently

To fully and equip children with the basic writing skills they need to enable them to be successful beyond primary school

To develop children’s understanding of language and vocabulary so that they can write texts with rich and engaging language choices

Provide high quality texts and authors that feed pupils’ imagination and inspire wonder, joy and curiosity

To develop children who are confident with: planning and composing texts using the appropriate features, structuring texts accurately, writing for a purpose, using punctuation accurately, using a range of spelling strategies, editing and improving their work and making adventurous language choices.

Implementation 

High quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs.

Regular green vocabulary feed forward marking to help develop children’s vocabulary choices.

Writing is highly valued and included daily as a part of children’s learning.

Dictionaries, word mats and thesauruses available in all classes.

Classroom displays promote writing and support children in making adventurous language choices.

Accurate half termly assessment through the use of Learning Ladders. Supported by Write to Impress, independent writing and spelling and GPS assessments.

Sharing writing at Parent’s Evening and displayed in classroom.

Opportunities to develop through extra-curricular e.g. phonics club and writing competitions.

High quality texts are available for children to access in the library, classrooms, home reading schemes and via Oxford Owl and Reading Planet online.

Lessons to include links to language to develop vocabulary and adults to model use of adventurous language.

Editing strategies and checklists to support children with editing and improving their own writing.

English lessons are completed daily.

Following a clearly sequenced and progressive program of study based on the National Curriculum objectives.

Impact

Children talk confidently about their learning in writing using appropriate and technical vocabulary.

Children develop their imaginations and actively engage with a range of different texts enthusiastically.

Children confidently apply their writing skills across other areas of learning.

Children have a widened vocabulary and can write texts which include rich vocabulary choices.

Children have an understanding of culture and history in relation to literature as well as how books and writing styles across different cultures differ.

Outcomes at the end of each Key Stage is at least in line or above National and progress is at least good.

Children can apply all their writing skills independently (including spelling and GPS skills) to create a well balanced text.

Children can write for a range of different purposes.

Prepared for the next stage of their learning and writing in their daily lives.

Children enjoy English lessons and are confident to share their ideas with others in the classroom.

Children demonstrate a love and passion for writing and talk confidently about a range of literary genres and authors.

 

 

English: Phonics and Spelling

Intent

Support children in learning their sounds so they can segment and blend to read words.

Support children in developing a range of decoding strategies so they can read words, sentences and books.

To allow children to develop an understanding of spellings patterns and rules which they can then apply in their reading and writing.

Inspire a love, enthusiasm and passion for reading within the school, children and parents.

Develop skills and enjoyment in reading for a purpose to obtain information.

To fully equip children with the basic reading skills they need to enable them to be successful beyond primary school.

To develop children who are confident with: segmenting, blending and decoding.

Encourage and provide the opportunity for all children to read widely and often for both pleasure and information.

To prepare children for the Phonics Screening Check.

Implementation

High quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs.

Regular and frequent explicit Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling lessons to develop and embed children’s skills.

Teach explicit strategies for identifying phonemes, graphemes and diagraphs.

Classroom displays and self-help resources support Phonics.

Accurate half termly assessment through the use of Sound Checks and Phonics Screening Tests.

NFER spelling test completed termly.

Opportunities to develop through extra-curricular e.g. phonics club.

Phonics is highly valued and included daily as a part of children’s learning as a non-negotiable.  Skills are taught and supported to be transferred across curriculum subjects and progresses naturally in to the spelling programme.

High quality texts are available for children to access in the library, classrooms, home readers and via Oxford Owl and Reading Planet online.

Children access quality Phonics and Spelling activities at the appropriate level at home through IDL Literacy online.

Children set across the school for accurately pitches Phonics lessons.

Dojos to reward children’s phonics and spelling work.

Following a clearly sequenced and progressive program of study based on the National Curriculum objectives.

Impact

Children talk confidently about their learning in phonics and GPS using appropriate and technical vocabulary.

Children can apply their phonics skills across reading and writing in other areas of the curriculum.

Children confidently apply their blending and segmenting skills across other areas of learning.

Outcomes at the end of each Key Stage is at least in line or above National and progress is at least good.

Phonics Screening Results to be in line or above National.

Children have an understanding of the etymology and morphology of words.

Children have a range of strategies to correctly spell and read familiar and unfamiliar words.

Prepared for the next stage of their learning and reading in their daily lives.

Children enjoy Phonics and GPS lessons and are confident to read aloud in front of others.

Children are able to make age appropriate attempts at spelling common exception words and high frequency words.

 

SEND Learners and children who require additional reading support

All children are assessed using the assessment tool appropriate to their stage of reading: Little Wandle, Big Cats accuracy and fluency test and Reading Plus. They are then placed on a programme of support which directly supports their needs.  This can be intensive phonics intervention, IDL or other programmes as advised by external agencies. These programmes are carefully monitored by the early reading lead and senco. 

Children who are experiencing specific and significant difficulties with reading are referred to outside agencies.

All staff are trained to deliver phonics interventions. We have a specialist reading teacher who is trained to deliver reading intervention and programmes recommended by external specialists. 

 

Useful Links to support with English at home

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/ 

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

https://idlsgroup.com/ 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zt3rkqt 

 

 

 

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