English

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” Malala Yousefzai

At Buckingham Primary School, we believe that proficiency in English is the key that unlocks learning across the curriculum. That children can read, write and speak effectively is a primary objective of our teaching and all our children are encouraged to see themselves as both readers and writers from an early age.

Our early reading programme follows Time for Phonics, an accredited scheme, to ensure that children become confident and competent readers. Our early writing programme is inspired by Greg Bottrill's Drawing Club to ensure our children see themselves as writers from the outset. In years 1 to 6, we follow a carefully designed sequential and progressive curriculum that is based on a wide range of high quality texts, to ensure that the teaching of reading, writing and oracy is contextualised and taught in small steps.

Intent

 At Buckingham Primary School, we know that English is a gateway to many careers, so we aim to support our children to see themselves as successful readers, writers and speakers. To this intent, our English curriculum aims to equip children with the skills they need to become successful.

We aim foster a culture where the importance of reading and writing in everyday life is clearly recognized and where children develop of love of reading, take pride in their writing and enjoy the ability to discuss a wide range of topics fluently and collaboratively.

Our phonics and early reading teaching aims to foster skills to decode texts successfully, supporting all children to become fluent and confident readers.

Once our children are fluent readers, our intent is to encourage children to read widely and often for both pleasure and information. We want children to explore our rich, varied and diverse literary canon, building a love of narrative, poetry and information, along with a broad and rich vocabulary that can be used in both spoken and written communication.

At the heart of our English curriculum is a range of high quality texts, selected by teachers and leaders, to be engaging and inspiring stimuli to reading and writing. We aim to enable all children to see themselves as confident and competent readers and writers. Our ambitious, inclusive curriculum is designed to be accessed by all. The sequential and progressive units of work build each year on previous knowledge and understanding while preparing our pupils confidently to tackle the next stage of their English journey. 

We also encourage our children to see themselves as successful speakers, through the implementation of a Voice 21 Oracy programme, which is integral not only to English, but across the entire curriculum.

Implementation

We ensure that English lessons provide a wide range of engaging, purposeful opportunities to read, write and discuss ideas.

• In EYFS and KS1, children have daily systematic, synthetic phonics sessions, using Time for Phonics scheme.
• Reading books, matched to phonics taught, are sent home weekly with all children.
• Children in EYFS and KS1 are also given books to take home and share with parents & carers to foster a love of reading and an understanding of purposeful reading.
• Once children are fluent readers, they continue to have weekly reading for fluency books, which they read with adults, both at home and in school. These are matched to their fluency level, which is regularly assessed.
• Children who are falling behind expected standards have barriers diagnosed and targeted, timed interventions, which aim to support them to keep up with peers.
• To ensure continued progression in fluent reading, children in KS2 have a reading for fluency book from Big Cat Collins reading scheme which they read daily and record in a reading diary.
• In KS2, children who need continued support with their reading fluency are assessed, barriers diagnosed and targeted interventions given.
• Children visit the school library weekly and links with the Buckingham Library and bookshop are encouraged
• Children are encouraged to read widely for pleasure and are supported by teachers in this endeavour through curated recommendations from the class and school library. Children are given opportunities to read their own choice regularly throughout the week.
• Every day, adults share stories, poems and information with the children through a 15-minute story session. Texts are carefully chosen to be engage, excite & provide children with accessible exposure to more challenging texts
• In KS1 and KS2, all pupils have a daily English lesson, which are planned using the high quality texts selected by school leaders and a school-wide planning format. This explicitly teaches the children to become successful writers, reading and writing as both readers and writers. By routinely considering the purpose and audience of writing along with being taught the appropriate grammar, vocabulary, language and style, required for their own writing, they learn to plan, draft, edit and present a wide range of text types.
• Each unit starts with a reading focus, to ensure that the children’s comprehension is extended and vocabulary developed; this is based on Aidan Chambers’ Book Talk and helps develop the children’s oracy skills as well as teaching them comprehension strategies.
• The curriculum is designed to allow adequate time to teach and practice key skills, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation needed write successfully for the intended purpose.
• In lessons:
  • o teachers use live modelling of writing (& reading) techniques so children understand the intrinsic link between reading and writing.
  • o children are given regular opportunities to discuss their ideas and to use drama and talk to develop their writing.
  • o children write daily to allow them to develop skills and stamina and enable them to practice these and become more confident, independent writers.
  • o Alan Peat sentences are used to augment writing teaching so that children are supported in using a variety of interesting sentence structures. These sentences also allow children to learn grammatical structures in a more child-friendly way.
  • o teachers use live feedback to support and extend children’s English skills. Rigorous feedback on key spellings, grammar and punctuation, as well as handwriting, enables children to make good progress.
  • o teachers use weekly colour-coded feedback to support the teaching of evaluating and editing
• Children have regular opportunities to publish their work – either in class books, for display or other purpose. Before publishing, children are given opportunities to discuss, evaluate, edit and re-draft writing that is their own and other people’s.
• In addition to the daily English lessons, English fluency sessions are taught daily. These focus on practice of spellings, handwriting, grammatical structures and short-burst creative writing to develop automaticity, freeing up working memory for new ideas.
• Working walls display ambitious vocabulary and the clear process of writing: reading and analyzing, gathering information for content, planning, drafting, editing and publishing.
• Vocabulary (key spellings, tier two words, text and subject specific) across the curriculum is displayed in classrooms to encourage ambitious and precise use of vocabulary in all subject areas.
• All classrooms in all key stages have displays of phonics phases to support fluency in reading and spelling.
• Spelling patterns are taught and practiced through the daily fluency sessions.
• Handwriting is taught daily in KS1 through the Nelson Handwriting Scheme to ensure that accurate letter formation is developed early in our children’s education journey. Errors in letter formation and joining are picked up by teachers through live feedback and additional practice is provided for those who are not keeping up with peers.
• BPS is implementing a curriculum-wide oracy programme through Voice 21.
• Reading fluency, reading comprehension and SPAG is assessed termly through summative papers; writing is assessed termly, using assessment grids taken from the NC

Impact

Our pupils will make good progress in all aspects of English, retaining knowledge and building on their skills continually.

By the time they leave Buckingham Primary School, our pupils will be effective readers, writers and communicators, well prepared for the next stage in their English-learning journey. They will have pride in their creativity, their comprehension and their confidence. Able to use critical thinking skills, they will have the skills to make individual, informed choices about both their reading and writing. This will enable them to apply their learning in the real world.

In addition, they will have learnt the importance of learning from one another, to enable them to tackle challenges in a creative manner and reach their full potential.

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F2 Checklist Y1 Checklist 

Y2 Checklist Y3 Checklist

 Y4 Checklist Y5 Checklist 

Y6 Checklist