English for Life at Holgate Academy

Intent

At Holgate we have developed a stimulating and challenging English Learning for Life Curriculum that helps our children to become independent learners and prepares them for the next stage of their education and leading them to fulfil their potential both academically and in the wider world. We are committed to the high-quality teaching and learning of English and recognise its fundamental role in enabling children to express themselves and communicate their thoughts, feelings, and ideas effectively, as well as enabling access to the entire curriculum.

Sound English skills are essential for progress across the curriculum and to prepare pupils effectively for tasks of adult life. At Holgate English underpins learning in every subject and we work to ensure there are significant opportunities across the wider curriculum for pupils to embed their literacy skills.

We want our children to have a positive attitude to communication and to be able to express their ideas independently and confidently. Our children are taught the importance of their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in the real world. English at Holgate is not only in the form of a daily discrete lesson but underpins the entire curriculum. It is embedded and developed within all our lessons. Through using high-quality texts, immersing children in vocabulary-rich learning environments and ensuring that curriculum expectations and the progression of skills are met, our children are exposed to a creative and continuous English curriculum which not only enables them to become literate but also develops a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening.

Implementation

These aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum.

At Holgate we choose high quality texts that the children enjoy and that develop and extend vocabulary. We use our working walls to model and support the reading to writing process.

Early Years Foundation Stage:

The English Curriculum is delivered using the following documents:

  • Early Years Foundation Stage Framework
  • The Early learning Goals are followed to ensure continuity and progression from the Foundation Stage through to the National Curriculum.
  • Monster Phonics

Key Stage 1:

The English Curriculum is delivered using the following documents:

  • National Curriculum
  • Monster phonics
  • Spellzoo
  • Letterjoin

Key Stage 2:

The English Curriculum is delivered using the following documents:

  • National Curriculum
  • Read, Write, Inc. Spelling Programme.
  • Spellzoo
  • Letterjoin

 

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

·          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.

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

·          use discussion to learn; they should be able to elaborate and clearly explain their understanding and ideas.

·          are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others, and participating in debate.

 

Children read daily, write daily, discuss, speak, and listen daily.

Phonics – Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 carry out group and whole-class reading as part of the daily Monster Phonics lesson. Twice a week, with the support of the teacher or teaching assistant, children with similar reading behaviours will practise their decoding and fluency skills in a group whilst answering questions using our reciprocal reading skills.

Children requiring phonics intervention in KS2 follow the Soundswrite programme.

Reciprocal Reading – Key stage two have two Reciprocal Reading sessions a week. These sessions use the four key skills of: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarising to explore a variety of high quality and age-appropriate texts. The children participate in reading discussion allowing the teacher or teaching assistant to question and challenge the group. New vocabulary is explored and clarified using the context.

 

At Holgate we choose high quality texts that the children enjoy and that develop and extend vocabulary. We use our working walls to model and support the reading to writing process.

We practise reading and writing across the curriculum: applying reciprocal reading skills, grammar knowledge, daily composition appropriate to the text type, pencil grip, and handwriting.

Assessment for learning should occur throughout the entire lesson, enabling teachers and teaching assistants to adapt their teaching to meet the children’s needs. This feedback should be incisive and regular and if further support and intervention is needed this can be put in place early.

Children should be active; practising skills they haven’t yet mastered (perhaps recapping on class targets/correcting errors from a previous lesson); learning something new or learning to apply their knowledge to different contexts. They should be: ‘doing’ very quickly; working at a good pace and being productive; sharing their thoughts and methods and being successful.

Impact

Children will be fluent readers with a good understanding of what they’ve read.

Children use phonics skills to help them become confident readers.

Children can retain knowledge of spelling rules and apply them in their writing.

 Children draw on reading and life experiences to confidently communicate ideas.

Children learn new words in every lesson and apply them in context in all areas of learning. They are encouraged to extend their range of vocabulary.

Children can structure cohesive pieces of writing and use a variety of sentences that are punctuated correctly, with neat and legible handwriting.

This enables pupils to embark successfully onto their journey into secondary school, the Key Stage 3 curriculum and beyond, equipped for the world with no limits to their success.

English Overview

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