JeroundsEnglish
Purpose and Aims
Reading and writing are at the heart of classroom teaching at NET Academies. Our aim is for children to become confident and independent learners who have a love of reading for pleasure and gain pleasure and insight from reading. Competence enables enjoyment and appreciation of literature and access to a world of information. We have developed a bespoke English curriculum based on engaging quality books and texts. We draw influences from current pedagogy combined with evidence-based research such as Talk for Writing to develop sequences of lessons to enable students to develop their ‘writer’s voice’.
At the end of key stage two will be able to:
- Read fluently and with good understanding
- Write clearly, accurately and coherently, for varied contexts and audiences across the curriculum
- Enjoy listening to and reading a range of genres
- Demonstrate rich vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and punctuation and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- Use discussion to clearly explain their understanding and ideas
- Be competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making informal and formal presentations and participate in debate.
Organisation of the curriculum
Long Term Plans
Children have access to a range of quality texts, through whole class reading stories, led by the teacher, use of a reading spine for guided and reciprocal reading, to ensure covering of all genres, including non-fiction.
English writing is taught with an emphasis on developing children’s writing ‘toolkit’ through building their grammatical and punctuation knowledge year on year.
Spiralling within the curriculum to allow time to revisit and refine grammatical features, vocabulary, sentence structure etc.
All children are given varied opportunities to apply this knowledge in a range of genres using the broad aims of the National Curriculum: reading quality texts, using what they read as writing stimulus and incorporating increasingly sophisticated vocabulary, sentence-structure, grammar and punctuation.
Planning and assessment
Ongoing formative assessment through the use of target sheets within all reading and writing books.
Half termly assessment of student’s phonic knowledge to enable rapid progression and movement, using the RWI programme.
Termly summative assessments are used to track children’s progress. This is enhanced with gap analysis tools to allow subsequent lessons to be planned based on children’s areas for development. For writing, termly moderation takes place across all NET academy schools.
Enrichment
Pupils are given varied opportunities to read a range of genres, and discuss what they read, using the broad aims of the National Curriculum: reading quality texts, using what they read as writing stimulus and incorporating increasingly sophisticated vocabulary.
Opportunities to develop a love for reading, alongside oracy skills through initiatives such as: secret reader, Shakespeare week, poetry competitions, Roald Dahl day, World Book Day, reading reward ‘telephone box’ and a newly designed reading zone/library.
Cross-curricular and wider opportunities to encourage children to apply writing skills across the broader curriculum. Examples of this include Shakespeare week, 500 words competition, school spelling bee, world book day, poetry competitions, Roald Dahl day, around the world week.