English Curriculum Intent
In English, at Kirkby Malham Primary School, our main aim is for all children to develop a love of reading, writing and discussion. One of our priorities is helping children read and develop their all-important comprehension skills. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately, and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts and purposes. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning.
We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in Literacy, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.
Writing Intent.
We want every child to leave Kirkby Malham Primary School with the skills of an excellent and confident writer who:
- Has the ability to write with fluency and creatively showing an author’s voice.
- Can think about the impact their writing will have on the reader and knows how to achieve this. Can write for a purpose.
- Has an extensive bank of vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend detail or description.
- Can structure their writing so it is coherent and suits the genre. It includes a variety of sentence structures to add flair and interest to the audience.
- Can produce writing that is well presented, punctuated correctly, spelt correctly and is neat.
- Can redraft, edit and improves their writing so every piece of work is to the best of their ability and is an improvement on the last.
At Kirkby Malham School pupils will develop these skills by being exposed to a whole range of genres, with a focus on exploring a range of models of excellence. We not only develop a real enjoyment of writing in English lessons but across the whole curriculum. We expect the highest of standards of writing every time a child writes in any subject.
Writing Implementation
Writing at Kirkby Malham School is led by high quality texts. Teachers choose texts that will enhance the unit of work being taught and the model texts are read and shared with the class.
We fully immerse our children in the texts so they can write empathetically, creatively, dramatically or factually.
We give our children a purpose for writing: to entertain, to inform, to persuade, or to discuss.
We ensure our children’s work is published for display to a wider audience, being it parents on Seesaw, to our partner school on Zoom assemblies or for our peers to read on display.
Units of work are planned and mapped out throughout the year. Throughout the unit the children are taught the skills, vocabulary and punctuation needed to be a confident and competent writer in that genre.
Working walls are used to display new and developing vocabulary and phrases.
Children follow a sequence – immersion in text, generate ideas, plan and write and then proof read and redraft (if necessary)
Children in EYFS are provided with a wide range of opportunities to develop the physical skills required to write. Provision to develop fine motor skills including using a pen/pencil to mark make/write are provided e.g. finger gym exercises/malleable activities/dressing and undressing etc
Writing Impact
Our writing curriculum is planned to demonstrate progression. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
A reflection on standards against the planned outcomes
Children can apply and understand the principles of spelling, grammar and punctuation in their writing.
Children can improve, evaluate and redraft their writing.
Children are confident, competent and creative writers.
Children develop an author’s voice
Children will develop skills at national expectation or greater depth.
Writing is assessed every half term, where the class tracker is completed.
Moderation of writing standards takes place in school and book scrutiny also informs judgements.
Reading and Phonics Intent
At Kirkby Malham School we value reading as a key life skill and are passionate about enabling our children to become lifelong readers. We believe that reading is key for academic success and to ensure we can provide this for our pupils we expect the following:
- It is expected that each child will read to an adult 1:1 weekly where possible, more in KS1.
- Children will be exposed to high quality texts and discussions around these will promote a love of reading.
- A wide range of books, fiction and non-fiction, will be on offer to the children to read for pleasure.
- Each classroom will have a comfortable space in which to read and choose literature from.
- We have a reading scheme that aligns to our phonic system and practises and reinforces phonics learnt.
- Reading books will be diverse and reflect the world in which we live in.
- Reading is seen to be valued by all adults working in school.
By the time children leave Kirkby Malham School we endeavour that children will be competent, confident and enthusiastic readers with a thirst for reading a range of genres, including poetry and participate in discussions about books.
Reading and Phonics Implementation
At Kirkby Malham School we use a synthetic phonics programme called Read, Write Inc. Children have daily phonics lessons where they learn to blend, segment, read and spell words. Continuous assessment of where the children are at and progressing informs next steps in their phonics teaching. The reading system is aligned to RWInc phonics and children can read the corresponding book for the sound they are practising. Children progress through the scheme until they have a secure knowledge of sounds and words. We continue our phonics lessons to all those children who need it in KS2.
We regularly use VIPERS (Vocabulary, inference, prediction, explain, retrieve, summarise) questioning in our reading lessons. This enables the children to answer a variety of questions and ensures their complete understanding of what they are reading.
Teachers assess against the National Curriculum reading outcomes for each year and against the Early Learning Goals for EYFS. Regular assessments of phonics and reading allow for gaps to be identified.
We have a Celebrating Stories journal that children can take home and artistically celebrate a story that they want to celebrate and share with their peers.
We encourage reading anywhere and have a wheelbarrow library that has books that can be read in our forest area or in the playground.
Our Reading ambassadors organise reading events in school.
In more formal assessments children will take an assessment paper to ensure reading judgements across school are secure and accurate.
Reading and Phonics Impact
Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1.
Once a child has reached this they can then focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through school. Attainment in reading is measured using the statutory assessments for the end of each key stage. These results are measured against all children nationally. Attainment in phonics is measured in the Phonics Screening Check at the end of Y1.
We believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.
We endeavour to instil in our children a real love of reading, we give all our children the opportunity to enter either a magical, scary, mysterious, colourful world all that books offer
to them. We promote reading for pleasure where children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and review the books objectively. When one child can recommend a good read, with reasons, to another child that’s the impact!
In Nursery children focus on developing key skills to enable them to listen carefully and discriminate between different sounds. Once children are secure in these skills they start to look at phonemes and graphemes using the Read, Write, Inc. Nursery scheme.
Whole School Reading Sessions
All children in school take part forming mixed age reading groups. All children can contribute choosing, reading and talking about books. Adults support where appropriate, but children take the lead giving adults the opportunity to listen in and make observations which contribute to individual assessments.
Speaking and Listening.
Not only do we encourage our children to become confident readers and writers we value performance and the speaking and listening stands of the National Curriculum. We nurture confident children who can engage in deep conversations and debate about topics and important issues. Children will question each other in a respectful, yet challenging way to further understand and explore. Drama/public speaking is used to develop children’s expression and confidence and all children get the opportunity to perform on stage on a twice yearly basis.
We teach children to present clearly and use intonation and expression to capture the audience.
The development of children’s Communication and Language underpins all seven areas of leaning and development in EYFS. We aim to provide a language-rich environment within Class 1 providing opportunities and encouraging children to engage in conversations and share their ideas and experiences with adults and their peers. Adults model new words and encourage children to use and embed these new words. Daily group discussions, show and tell, story time
sessions, role-play and small world play all support children’s communication and language development.
Moderation and progression across school
As a school we display the whole school writing so a progression of skills can be seen. We will share the work with each other and moderate within the partnership to ensure that assessments are accurate.