Our Vision (Intent)

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. 

What does this look like in our School? (Implementation)

Ready Steady Write empowers children to write through high-quality teaching of writing through high-quality literature. These detailed units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities within and across the curriculum. They provide:

• Clear sequential Episodes of Learning
• Vocabulary learning and contextualised spelling, grammar and punctuation
• Wider reading for the wider curriculum
• Example Texts linked to writing outcomes
• A wealth of supporting resource

Our English curriculum is developed around a sequence of high-quality age-appropriate texts, using Literacy Count’s Ready Steady Write units of learning. We use each book to create opportunities to:

• develop grammar and punctuation knowledge and understanding to use and apply across the wider curriculum, through sentence accuracy sessions;
• explore the Writing structure and features of different genres, identifying the purpose and audience;
• plan and write an initial piece of Writing with a clear context and purpose before evaluating the effectiveness of Writing by editing and redrafting.

Building on this foundation, we teach literacy using a range of strategies which include:

• Group Discussion – Children discuss and interrogate new ideas in a small group or whole class setting. They listen to and value each other’s ideas whilst taking on board feedback so as to improve their own explanations.
• Partner Talk – Children work in partners to discuss their ideas. They are able to explain their ideas about texts they have read and prepare their ideas before they write.
• Questioning – Teachers use a range of questioning strategies to establish children’s current understanding and develop their learning.
• Modelled Writing – Teachers model Writing and editing to demonstrate the high expectations they have. They verbally ‘think aloud’ in order to make the Writing process explicit and provide a rich and varied vocabulary for the children to utilise in their own work. This happens daily, through sentence accuracy
• Shared Writing – Teachers use the ideas from the children to create shared pieces of Writing. This enables the children to see the Writing process in action as well as having pride and ownership over the finished piece.
• Editing – All children are signposted to regular opportunities for reviewing and editing their own and the work of others. Children have access to 'sentence checkers' to support this process. 
• Working walls – Teachers and children regularly update working walls to ensure learning is documented within a unit of work.

What difference does this make (impact)

The innovative practice across the school provides a strong foundation and opportunities for children to collaborate and develop social skills both indoors and out. This curriculum design ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met within the environment of quality first teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate. In this way it can be seen to impact in a very positive way on children’s outcomes. High quality visits and visitors to the school enhance the curriculum and provide opportunities for Writing for a purpose. Children have opportunities to share their learning with each other, their parents and carers and other learners through school-based and external exhibitions, performances, competitions and events involving other schools. Developing their independence and motivation as learners and their sense of responsibility as future citizens is at the heart of all our teaching and learning. As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic writers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy knowledge and skills. They are confident to take risks in their writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas.

Reading

Our vision (Intent)

At St Augustine's CE Primary School, we aim to provide children with a literacy-rich environment, high quality texts and inspiring learning opportunities.  We believe that:

• Children should read for both pleasure and purpose
• Reading is a crucial life skill
• Children should have time to read independently, read aloud and be read to every day
• A love of reading can be taught and encouraged at school – just like any other area of the curriculum
• Developing an engaging environment to support and encourage reading is crucial
• High quality phonics teaching is an essential part of teaching reading
• Children should be able to apply their knowledge of phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed
• Children should be able to read accurately, fluently, expressively and with understanding at a level that is appropriate for them
• Children need explicit teaching of comprehension skills to increase their understanding of a text
• Reading great literature opens children up to ideas, experiences, places and times they might never otherwise experience in real life
• Reading regularly helps children to develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar
• Children should have opportunities to read and respond to a wide range of different types of texts
• Reading helps children to develop a deeper level of emotional intelligence and empathy
• Children who read regularly are able to do so fluently and with confidence in the wider curriculum
• Reading at home plays an essential role in developing enjoyment and self-esteem
• Reading is a message getting activity which is made up of two components – word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension (see diagram below)

Implementation

Reading for pleasure

Reading for pleasure has many non-literacy benefits and can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and improve wellbeing throughout life (The Reading Agency 2015)

Teachers who encourage students to read books of their choice for pleasure is a major contribution towards students developing a positive attitude towards reading and a life-long interest in reading. (International Reading Association, 2014).

At St Augustine’s, we believe in the importance of reading for pleasure.  We give our children lots of opportunities to help nurture their love of reading, such as -

• Author visits and virtual author workshops
• Library visits
• Visits to the theatre
• Being a Summer Reading Challenge pilot school
• Celebrating World Book Day
• Parent and child reading workshops
• A book banded reading system which uses a variety of different schemes to capture the interest of all children
• Story time every day
• Age appropriate books in reading areas in every classroom
• Reading books which promote and celebrate diversity
• Reading buddies

Guided Reading

Guided reading is taught daily from reception up to year 6.  Early readers practise reading decodable books in line with their secure phonic knowledge.  Once secure in phase 5, children are introduced to non-decodable books which are at their instructional level.  This is the level which is challenging but manageable for the reader.  During the lesson, staff guide children as they read, talk and think their way through a text.  Staff observe reading and provide each child with individualised feedback.  The feedback consists of praise – showing the child what they did well with the aim of reinforcing effective use of problem-solving reading strategies; and prompt – showing the child what to do next in order to improve their reading further.

 Shared Reading

Shared reading takes place daily from nursery to year 6.  During shared reading, a text is shared and is visible to the whole class.  The initial reading of the text is uninterrupted and focusses on meaning, phrasing and enjoyment.  After that, the teacher models using various reading strategies and develops comprehension skills through prediction, key questioning, sequencing, summarising and vocabulary development. 

Independent Reading

Each class allocates time for independent reading every day.  We believe that it is important that children read books that are easy (at their independent level) over and over again to practice reading fluently, which means that reading should sound smooth, not choppy.  It should sound like talking, with expression and intonation.  Children need to practice familiar books many times before their reading sounds quick, expressive and like spoken language.  Good fluency leads to good understanding, an easier transition to the next reading level and confidence.  We have a book banded reading system which uses a variety of different schemes to capture the interest of all children.  

Reading Recovery

St Augustine’s has been a Reading Recovery school for many years.  Reading Recovery is a literacy programme designed to raise the attainment of the lowest achieving children in key stage one.  The Reading Recovery programme enables children to make accelerated progress and reach age related expectations within 20 weeks.  

It involves a short series of daily one-to-one lessons for 30 minutes with a specially trained teacher. Reading Recovery is different for every child, starting from what the child knows and what he/she needs to learn next. The focus of each lesson is to comprehend messages in reading and construct messages in writing, learning how to use letter and word detail fluently without losing focus on meaning and comprehension.

Each lesson consists of reading familiar books, reading yesterday's new book and taking a running record, working with letters and/or words using magnetic letters, writing a story, assembling and reconstructing a cut-up story, and reading a new book.

Phonics

Phonics is taught through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme.  Please see the Phonics and Early Reading policy.

Home Reading

Reading at home is encouraged and promoted on a regularly.  Home reading books are changed weekly and parents are encouraged to sign the home school reading planner each time their child reads.  We use national reading events such as World Book Day and the Summer Reading Challenge to further encourage reading at home.

Impact

Assessment

Each child is assessed daily, through assessment for learning and teaching is tailored to meet the needs of the children. 

Staff observe children reading and give feedback to reinforce good reading behaviours and also prompts which enhance children’s strategic activity. 

Children’s independent reading level is tracked each half term using the benchmark kit and running records.  These resources allow staff to accurately identify children’s independent reading level and assess their ability to read for meaning. 

Statutory assessment

Children in years 1 – 6 take a standardised reading test (Testbase) at the end of each term.

Children take SATs tests at the end of year 6.

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.  (See Early Reading and Phonics policy)

Speaking and Listening (Oracy)

Our vision (Intent)

In Oracy, we aim for all of our children to see themselves as confident speakers who can talk in a range of different situations. As a Rights Respecting Gold school,  endeavour to inspire a confidence and sense of curiosity in our children and develop their enthusiasm for Oracy, recognising that the skills and knowledge they learn through Oracy can be used to have a positive impact on their day to day lives. At St Augustine's our children confidently use their right to a voice to advocate change in our school community and the world around us. 

To be able to be a confident speaker and communicator, children will need to build up the skills, knowledge and understanding of Oracy.  They will need to understand and use the language of Oracy and apply these speaking and listening skills and knowledge across the curriculum, making connections both within Oracy and across other curriculum areas too.

To be a successful communicator, children need to hear and use a variety of language in order to develop their vocabulary, grammar and understanding. This will support their development in reading and writing. Children will have opportunities to develop their confidence and competence in spoken language and listening skills. Children will be able to explain their understanding of books and other reading, and will have the opportunities to prepare their ideas before they write. They will be able to make their thinking clear to themselves and others, and they will be able to discuss and debate to address and remedy their misconceptions. Children will participate in and gain knowledge, skills and understanding associated with drama. Children will be able to adopt, create and sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in role. They will have opportunities to improvise, devise and script drama for one another and a range of audiences. They will be able to rehearse, refine, share and respond thoughtfully to drama performances. 

Statutory requirements which underpin all aspects of spoken language across the six years of primary education form part of the National Curriculum which are reflected and contextualised across each subject in the National Curriculum.  

Implementation

The aims of the National Curriculum (2014) for Oracy (spoken language) are to:

• listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers 
• ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge 
• use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary 
• articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
• give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
• maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments 
• use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas 
• speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English 
• participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates 
• gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)
• consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others 
• select and use appropriate registers for effective communication.

The curriculum at St Augustine's is designed carefully, taking into acount the knowledge and skills that children need to acquire. Each curriculum area has been structured and sequenced in order to engage pupils in purposeful learning by building on prior knowledge and helping connect knowledge, understanding and skills year-on-year both within Oracy and across other subjects too.

For Oracy, activities and opportunities are weaved throughout all lessons across the curriculum from EYFS to year 6. Children are given daily opportunities where they are taught and have chance to apply the oracy skills they need. Children learn these skills through talk for writing, talk for learning and the use of talk frames across all curriculum areas. The use of drama and roleplay is also a vital part of supporting children in developing their oracy skills. Regular opportunities are given for speaking and listening to others and to develop their vocabulary.  Vocabulary is displayed in all classrooms for a range of subjects. Children are taught new vocabulary regularly and are given opportunities to use their new vocabulary in written work and conversations. Children revisit and build upon vocabulary learned in previous years as learning and topics build upon each other throughout the school. 

We recognise that foundations for becoming a confident speaker and communicator are laid in the Early Years Foundation Stage through all seven strands of the Early Years Framework, especially Communication and Language, and to be ready for the next stage in their education, the starting point that we strive for every child to have upon entry to Y1 and working towards the aims of the National Curriculum is: 

• To have back and forth interactions
• To hold quality conversations with adults and peers
• To be exposed to and build new vocabulary
• To have opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts
• To engage in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems 
• To share ideas through conversation, story-telling and role play
• To answer questions and elaborate on thoughts and ideas

Once children enter Y1, they work progressively towards the aims of the National Curriculum.  To ensure progression, the teaching team worked together to plan out curriculum coverage and then the subject leader identified the progression of skills and vocabulary required at each stage of learning to prepare children for the next stage in their learning.

Impact

Oracy is assessed using both formative and summative assessment strategies. Assessment for learning is used throughout individual lessons to inform future planning and to identify elements that need to be addressed at later points. Within each term, children are assessed against the National Curriculum or EYFS curriculum, if children are not working at ARE within this area then children will be included in the WellComm intervention groups. All children are assessed in WellComm termly to check what their level of communication and understanding is and to also identify if children need any support to catch up to their peers.

In order to measure the impact of our oracy provision, we complete regular lesson monitoring and pupil voice actvities as well as discuss the progress of children during pupil progress meetings termly.

Tools to support our writing.