"The teaching and learning of English is much more coherent when scaffolded around quality literature. In this way, pupils can be taught, for instance, how to build suspense, what a metaphor is or how connotations spin wildly in our brains, rather than simply ‘doing’ a book, ‘covering’ a poem or ticking an assessment box"
Bob Cox
‘Opening Doors to Ambitious Primary English’
Intent:
At Knightwood, our English curriculum is designed to develop our pupils into confident readers, writers and communicators and instil a life-long enjoyment of reading for pleasure. We encourage children's curiosity and desire to read, make links with their own knowledge, reading and other curriculum subjects. We understand the important role that a secure knowledge of reading, writing and discussion has on the future success of the child and their ability to participate fully in society. We have a carefully planned and sequenced curriculum which is underpinned by rich quality literature. Our teachers have high aspirations for all children and promote good outcomes for all.
Implementation:
English at Knightwood is taught through immersion in a tapestry of high-quality texts and stimuli that excites and inspires children to be readers and writers.
Key principles that underpin our teaching:
Reading as a gateway: It is a moral imperative for Knightwood to teach every child to read, regardless of social and economic circumstances, the ethnicity of pupils, the language spoken at home and most SEN or disabilities. We are sharply accountable for the progress and success of our children. Unless children have learned to read, the rest of the curriculum remains a secret to which they will never have access.
Children are taught to decode using our phonics scheme - Bug Club Phonics. See the Early Reading section of our website for more information.
Alongside a daily English lesson, children from Year 2 to Year 6 participate in whole class reading sessions. Children are again encouraged to read and discuss texts from a range of genres to develop their reading fluency and this enables them to direct their attention on their knowledge and skills in retrieval, understanding of vocabulary and comprehension, including inference. Assessment is an integral part of the teaching sequence and allows teachers to plan future learning opportunities based on the learning needs of all children within their classes. Teachers also use termly summative assessment to further track progress.
Our school and class libraries allow children to immerse themselves in the wonderful world of books. They are stocked with an attractive range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to support every ability and reading choice. We aim to draw on the latest reading trends and also classic texts that should be part of every child’s primary school experience to build on their cultural capital. We engage the children in celebrations of reading and books, for example during World Book Day and during regular study of whole school texts. Reading ambassadors have been appointed in school to emphasise the views of the children.
Text Selection: We believe that what you read influences the writer you are; therefore the importance of text selection cannot be underestimated. Each text’s potential is carefully considered, enabling children to take inspiration from great writers past and present, articulate a personal response and respond creatively.
Access: We use a range of strategies and scaffolds supported by high quality discussion throughout the learning journeys ensuring equitable access for all.
Articulating success: Children are supported throughout the reading of a text to understand how the author’s intent and impact upon the reader is achieved. Through this process, excellence criteria are shared. These also include functional English skills.
Vocabulary development: Words are the building blocks of language and are at the heart of reading and writing. The fundamental aim of the reader is word recognition, whilst for the writer it is choosing the right word. We know that a wider vocabulary across the curriculum equates to better reasoning and inference skills, stronger writing outcomes and, ultimately, higher academic success. Therefore, vocabulary development is a key element of every writing learning journey.
Foundational Knowledge: We understand that there are basics of reading and writing that pupils need to be able to do automatically in order to carry out more complex tasks. These form a core part of our curriculum. The ability to spell is an essential life skill. Following on from the school's phonics programme, children from Year 2 to 6 are taught discrete spelling lessons using the Sounds and Syllables Spelling programme. Handwriting is taught through the Kinetic Letters programme.
Impact:
The impact of our English curriculum is a community of enthusiastic readers and writers. Children have pride in their written work and use language effectively and precisely. Importantly, they are not frightened by complex texts. Children leave Knightwood having developed a love of reading and having gained the skills to make them successful communicators. They are able to read and understand a range of texts and write for different purposes, successfully considering the audience. Children achieve well in phonics and above national averages in key stage 2 for reading and are broadly in line for writing. Children across the school take pride in the presentation of their work and this is evident in both English books and books across the wider curriculum.
Our aim is that by the time our children move onto secondary school, their high aspirations and enthusiasm for English will travel with them and continue to grow.