Writing Curriculum Statement

Intent

At King’s Academy Northern Parade we strive to help our children develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well equipped with the basic skills they need to become life-long learners; English learning is key to this. We believe that all 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 aim to ensure all of our children develop a genuine love of language and the written world, through a text-based approach: think links closely to the way we teach reading, as the text that we use in writing lessons, where possible, is the same text as the one that we use in guided reading lessons. We feel that writing is a key that unlocks children’s imagination and enables them to become learners of the world.

In the Early Years children start their writing journey through Drawing Club. This encourages the emergent stages of writing enabling children to give meaning to their marks. Drawing Club breeds a storytelling culture amongst the children and provides children with a joy for writing at the start of their school experience. Drawing club sessions focus on rich vocabulary exposing children to the world language.

Our intention in writing is for our children to:

• Write for a purpose

• See themselves as real writers

• Take ownership of their writing

• See writing as an interesting and enjoyable process

• Acquire the ability to organise and plan their written work

Implementation

At King’s Academy Northern Parade, we teach the National Curriculum, supported by a clear skills and knowledge progression. This ensures that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning. 

We aim to develop children’s ability to produce well - structured detailed writing in which the meaning is made clear and which engages the interest of the audience/reader. Particular attention is paid throughout the school to the formal structures of English: grammatical detail, punctuation and spelling. Teachers clearly model writing skills and document the learning journey through consistent working walls; guided writing sessions are used to target specific needs of both groups and individuals. 

Through our daily English lessons, the teaching of English writing follows the Hampshire Learning approach and is led through text rich, purposeful, well-developed learning journeys, where all children are challenged and supported to reach their full potential. In writing, teachers plan and teach learning journeys with a clear written outcome using the three-step approach to writing (stimulate and generate; capture, sift and sort; and create, refine, evaluate.) This journey is designed to show progress, teach the pertinent year group objectives, apply and consolidate these skills and develop vocabulary.

At King’s Academy Northern Parade, spelling is taught regularly in focussed sessions within each class. Learning to recognise the harder to read and spell words on sight is crucial in developing fluency and accuracy in reading and then in writing. Harder to read and spell words are the words that appear most often in printed materials. Once children are confident in reading and spelling these words, they are taught spelling rules and are encouraged to apply these rules in their writing. Class teachers use No Nonsense Spelling to support the teaching of different spelling rules. Pupils are taught punctuation and grammar skills in the context of text drivers, appropriate to their year group. 

Impact

Within a term, each child is encouraged to write independently, this is then assessed and used to inform progress, planning and teaching. The amount of individual writing opportunities progressively increase in upper school to ensure a variation of genres and range of purpose and audiences. After each piece children are conferenced which aims to celebrate what they have done well and the next step set with the child. Writing across all key stages is moderated as a whole school, within year groups and at cluster moderation events.

By the time children leave our school they will:

• Make good progress from the EYFS profile

• Have a love for writing and write for enjoyment

• Be able to produce written work in all areas of the curriculum to a high standard

• Be confident to write for a range of different purposes

• By the end of Year 6 children are well-prepared for the secondary curriculum.

Reading and Phonics Curriculum Statement

King’s Academy Northern Parade

 

Intent

At King’s Academy Northern Parade we believe that our English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and communication skills. We believe that all 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 feel that reading is a key that unlocks children’s imagination and enables them to become learners of the world. Therefore, on entering, our reception year children start their reading journey using a systematic synthetic phonics approach which can be applied across all areas of the curriculum, this continues throughout the school.

Implementation

After careful research and discussion our school has been using Essential Letters and Sounds since 2022 as the Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme. This is a validated programme delivered by Oxford University Press. In the Early Years and Year 1 children receive an hour of phonics teaching per day. This consists of a morning session and a review and application session in the afternoon. Within the reading provision a range of individual and group phonics application activities are planned for. In the years 2-6 if children are not on track in their phonic knowledge they receive half an hour per day and intervention where needed to close phonic gaps.

Across KS1 & KS2 English and reading sessions are taught daily. To give children further reading opportunities and drive our text led curriculum all pupils engage in ‘shared reading’ sessions.  It is a collaborative approach aimed at improving reading skills, comprehension, vocabulary, and language development. In KS2 this is known as ‘destination reader’.

Throughout the week every child in the infant phase is heard read as part of a group in a guided reading group. The texts selected are linked to their reading age to enhance discussion and wider reading skills. 

A drive for love of reading is a key priority for our school community. A reading spine is in place that covers a wide range of texts and genres. Year groups use these to read aloud to their classes each day and model expert reading.

The importance of phonics

Phonics gives children the key to unlocking the English alphabetic code for reading and spelling. Children’s knowledge of this code - how letters or groups of letters represent the sounds of the language - supports their reading and spelling. Using the ELS programme, children are systematically taught the phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (written letters), how to blend the sounds all through the word for reading, and how to segment the sounds in order to write words. They are taught to use their phonic skills and knowledge as their first approach to reading, but are also taught high frequency words (harder to read and spell words) which do not completely follow the phonic rules. The implementation of the 'Essential Letters and Sounds' programme will ensure that our children will be taught to read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge.

Assessment

As part of the review section in our phonics programme we aim for all children to complete an assessment every 5-6 weeks. We use a Phonics Tracker as an assessment tool to identify progress and gaps to inform future teaching and support. This means that quick revisits can be made if necessary and adjustments in the lesson can take place almost instantly. Children in Year One undertake three mock phonic screening tests across the year to build stamina for word reading and gap identification. Once a child has completed the phonics programme they move onto a reading age assessment tool in order to become a free reader.

Reading at home

It is an expectation across the school that all children read at home for 5-10 minutes each day. All children are expected to bring a book bag to school that holds their reading record and home reading books. We have invested heavily in fully phonetically decodable reading books published by Oxford University Press which link directly to the phonemes that children are learning. New books are sent home on a Friday to ensure that children have had exposure to those sounds through high quality teaching. Each child is also provided with a banded book that is linked to their reading age; these help them to develop comprehension and narrative skills. Weekly library sessions are part of our curriculum,  children are able to select books of their choice to share at home.

Reading Intervention & Support

Children who require additional support in acquiring their sounds will be given this in addition to their daily phonics lessons. Interventions are run by experienced members of staff and they use the model of recap, apply and read. We appreciate that children build upon knowledge of sounds and apply reading skills at different rates. In order to support our lowest 20% it is an expectation that teachers aim to hear each child read at least 3 times a week. At King’s Academy Northern Parade we are proud of our ‘reading pledge’ whereby each child is heard to read individually and aim to build reading relationships with all staff across the school  that act as reading role models. All staff have access to Phonics Tracker and can use this as a tool for gap analysis.