English

English Curriculum

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Intent

At Horspath Church of England School, we intend to promote a love of reading and the English language that is long lasting and effectively prepares our children for adulthood and the world beyond our school.

Staff aspire for all children to read fluently by the end of Key Stage One, in order for them to build their basic skills as they progress through Key Stage Two. Our chosen phonics scheme, Little Wandle – which is government validated https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/, is taught daily in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 and provides children with regular opportunities to access decodable texts that are matched to their growing phonics knowledge. From Y2 onwards, spelling is taught on a regular basis following the Essential Spelling programme. Children are taught to use a neat, legible and consistent style of handwriting and presentation based on the Twinkl cursive handwriting scheme.

At Horspath, we want all children to be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing, writing with a clear purpose across all subjects. We want our children to develop a wide vocabulary, be able to spell new words accurately and have a good understanding of grammar and punctuation which they can apply to their work. We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a legible, joined handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school.

Reading and writing are at the very heart of our curriculum. At Horspath, we have introduced the CLPE English curriculum, which places rich and diverse texts at the centre of our children’s learning: texts that act as a catalyst and stimulus for purposeful and creative writing opportunities across a variety of genres. Teachers use the scaffolding provided by the CLPE to design creative and innovative units of work that allow children to read, gather content, plan, write and edit pieces of work that showcase skills that spiral upwards from entry.

There is clear progression set out through our curriculum planning for English. We recognise that learning is a change to long-term memory – the place where all knowledge is stored. Therefore, our curriculum sets out the specific procedural and semantic knowledge children will need to develop their understanding of the threshold concepts as they progress through the school. Through this progression there is plenty of opportunity to revisit and reinforce learning so that children can develop their procedural fluency and semantic strength.

At Horspath, we believe that cultural capital will give our children knowledge and experience which they require to become informed and thoughtful members of our community. When planning our English curriculum we incorporated the following cultural capital elements:

Vocabulary development

We recognise the importance of widening and deepening children’s vocabulary for academic success, future employment and wellbeing. We are developing a vocabulary spine within our curriculum to support the progression of children’s vocabulary as they move up through the school.

Text selection                                                                                                                        

We have developed our school reading spine to ensure our children experience a wide range of:

• Archaic language

• Non-linear sequenced texts

• Narratively complex texts

• Symbolic text

• Resistant texts and poetry

• Non-fiction texts

Knowledge of the world

Within our topics we ensure that content covered will widen children’s general knowledge and increase their awareness of current affairs. Our curriculum links with spiritual, moral, social and cultural learning which aids our children in reaching their full potential and equips them to be successful citizens who can contribute positively to society and life in modern Britain. 

In addition, through the ‘No Outsiders Project’, Horspath children develop an appreciation for democracy, English law, accountability, individual liberty, equality and tolerance. We plan for many opportunities for children to write around many different cultural themes and enjoy using texts which have social, cultural and moral themes within them.

Our daily English curriculum is supplemented with events throughout the year that celebrate reading, oracy and seek to enrich our children’s cultural capital and knowledge and understanding of the world in which they live.

Implementation

Teachers at Horspath are committed to designing inspiring and inclusive units of work that reflect the ever-changing needs of our children. English lessons are taught daily across the school and to the whole class, therefore allowing all children to have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum.

Our English curriculum is based on CLPE’s The Power of Reading to provide our teachers with the scaffolding to innovate, using a variety of texts as a starting point. 

At Horspath, each class has a daily guided reading lesson where we focus on teaching and developing the key skills in reading from the National Curriculum and each lesson focuses on children developing a key reading skill. We use quality extracts from high quality texts so children have the opportunity to unpick the text and can use and apply their reading skills independently. Furthermore, we use VIPERS (Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise) weekly in whole class guided reading in KS2 and in year 2. Children in year 1 complete these verbally.  They require children to read, watch, observe or listen to a stimulus, and then answer some questions, helping children to develop their key skills in reading.

We quickly identify any children who are finding reading challenging and we intervene early through the H4L Reading Fluency programme. Progress of children on this programme is monitored closely to support their progress and the reading recovery teacher, the class teacher and parent work closely to support the child’s progress in reading.

We teach dedicated spelling, punctuation and grammar lessons along with handwriting lessons. Punctuation and grammar objectives are covered within the literacy weekly plan and we teach a dedicated spelling lesson each week. Children have the opportunity to revisit and reinforce their understanding of key grammar terminology through retrieval based tasks each week. For spelling lessons we focus on learning a new spelling rule or patterns set out in the National Curriculum. 

Our writing teaching sequences are broken up into four distinct parts: Immersion, Gathering content, planning and writing. Each part aims to build on the last, developing skills and ending in a published piece of writing that reflects national curriculum objectives.

In the immersion phase, children will be introduced to a text and will read, sequence, act out explore and analyse the different features that each genre contains. Our children will participate in drama, poetry recital and performance utilising a selection of CLPE teaching approaches.

Children gather content by practising the key skills needed for success in their main piece of writing. This will often include shorter writing opportunities such as character and setting descriptions, couplets and rhyming words. A key priority of the school is to develop children’s vocabulary and standard English. Teachers explicitly teach key vocabulary throughout the immersion and gathering content phases.

Using the content that the children have brought together, they will enter the planning phase where children will be exposed to a number of different planning structures and formats. As they progress through their school journey, staff aspire for children to make planning choices independently, based on the genre and purpose of the text. During the planning phase, teachers will utilise a variety of teaching techniques such as modelling the writing process (demonstrating the high standards expected of all children) shared writing and joint composition to model high quality writing outcomes.

Children then enter a phase of writing which includes drafting, re drafting and editing their work, responding to a combination of teacher and peer feedback. 

Work is then published and shared with their peers when it is displayed around our school and in their classrooms. The diagram below shows the sequence overview that teachers use.

Teachers use the national curriculum to ascertain what content children will learn to utilise. As children progress through the school, teachers build on the skills that have been previously taught (spiral) in order to deepen the children’s understanding.

Through termly pupil progress meetings, teachers and SLT track attainment and progress in writing. We moderate writing regularly, both within school and across our Trust schools. All data is used purposefully to put appropriate measures into place which help to impact on pupil progress.

Impact

We regularly assess children’s learning in English to measure impact. Children develop transferable skills in English, producing high quality pieces of work at the end of each teaching sequence and teachers clearly show what work has been completed independently. Children are competent readers and writers by the time they are in upper Key Stage 2. The genres of writing are familiar to the children and they can focus on creativity, writer’s craft, 

sustained writing and the manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills. Children can write effectively across the curriculum as English skills are transferred into other subjects. 

Assessment for learning in English is continuous throughout the planning, teaching and learning cycle. The daily assessments teachers make help them to adjust their daily and weekly planning. It is supported by use of the following strategies: 

Observing children at work, individually, in pairs, in a group and in class during whole class teaching. 

Using differentiated, open-ended questions that require children to explain and unpick their understanding. 

Providing effective feedback, including interactive marking through targeted questions where appropriate, to engage children with their learning and to provide opportunities for self-assessment, consolidation, depth and target setting. 

Use of success criteria as a frame for children to self-evaluate and peer-evaluate. Children are encouraged to correct their spellings, proof read and up level their writing independently.