English
Subject Leader - Miss Gainey
Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy Counts to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations.
Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and purpose. Through the use of high-quality, vocabulary-rich texts, we provide exciting and meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature and taught to craft their writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as regular opportunities for editing.
We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly before writing them down. Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic writers, ready for the next stage of their education.
Intent
At Banks Road Primary School, we believe that a high quality English curriculum will give our children the best possible chance to become competent communicators and thinkers, who love reading and writing.
We advocate that children in EYFS and Year 1 use phonics as the first strategy for decoding unfamiliar words.
We provide a rigorous and well-organised English curriculum that is underpinned with high quality texts to support our children to develop a rich and varied vocabulary. These progressive texts are used to teach children to write with grammatical accuracy, apply spelling patterns and produce a range of independent writing that is celebrated for each individual child.
Our staff model writing using neat handwriting and expose our children to a wide range of vocabulary, providing them with opportunities to apply their language skills.
By the time they leave our school, we want every child to be a confident reader, who can read fluently and widely, expressing their preferences and opinions.
Implementation
Phonics
The teaching and learning of phonics is the core purpose of the Reception Year. We teach phonics as the key strategy to decoding through the careful, consistent implementation of our phonics programme, Read Write Inc. Children read sounds and blend them into words using Read Write Inc. Children practise building fluency and expression using books that are closely matched to their phonic knowledge and ability.
Shared Reading
We teach a structured shared reading lesson daily to ensure children can access the vocabulary and meaning of the text before they apply their reading skills. We ensure there is a balance of text types.
Writing
All year groups are provided with a high quality text that is selected from our own Banks Road Reading Spine. All of our English work is planned and delivered around this text. All units of work start (cold task) and end (hot task) with an independent task to assess what children know and can do. Assessment of these independent pieces of writing inform the teacher’s planning. Teachers model the writing process at all stages through means of explicit teaching.
Spelling
Our spelling curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-recognised Ready Steady Spell by Literacy Counts to ensure that all pupils become fluent, accurate spellers. Our spelling curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, helping children secure the essential skills and strategies they need to spell confidently across the curriculum. Through engaging activities, consistent teaching routines and regular opportunities to revisit prior learning, we help children move spelling knowledge into their long-term memory.
Our aim is to build confident writers who are equipped with the tools they need to communicate clearly and effectively. Spelling is taught in a clear and systematic way, with regular reviews and assessments. Additional support is provided through Ready Steady Spell: Go sessions, which offer targeted intervention for pupils who need further consolidation
Handwriting
Handwriting is taught explicitly in EYFS using Read Write Inc letter formation. Handwriting is taught explicitly from Year 1 - Year 6 using Letter-Join. Children in KS1 use pre-cursive handwriting and KS2 are taught a cursive handwriting.
Reading for Pleasure
Adults model reading to children daily. Children have access to books to read purely for enjoyment in each classroom. Children also regularly visit our school library, our local library and our outdoor reading areas.
At Banks Road we teach our English curriculum using the Literacy Counts, Read to Write Scheme. These units of work are adapted to meet the needs of our children and inspire our children though high quality literature. All year groups immerse themselves in a new ‘vehicle text’ each half term; this vocabulary-rich text drives learning and hosts a wealth of writing opportunities across the curriculum.