English
Reading
Subject intent
At Willenhall Community Primary School we want to give our pupils the tools to be fluent, confident, enthusiastic readers. We want to foster a lifelong love of reading in our pupils and offer them a range of diverse books to spark their imagination and teach them about the world around them. We want our pupils to leave us in Year 6 with the appropriate skills to access their continued learning to succeed in life.
Subject Coverage
To teach our pupils to read and write, we follow Read Write Inc. This is a comprehensive literacy program designed by Ruth Miskin. RWI teaches children to read, blend, spell, and write through a structured step-by-step approach, ensuring all children develop reading fluency and comprehension confidence. The program begins in Nursery and is expected to be completed by Year 2 Spring term- though some children may continue working on the program into KS2. In upper KS2, we offer Fresh Start which follows on from RWI for those pupils who have not yet mastered reading. Fresh Start features engaging, age-appropriate texts and systematic teaching of phonics.
In addition to phonics, children from Nursery to Y2 take part in Talk Through Stories, a programme to develop a love of reading, understanding of vocabulary and comprehension skills through reading and talking about books. Through Talk Through Stories, children are exposed to a range of exciting picture books from Owl Babies to The Day the Crayons Quit.
From Year 3 to Year 6, children who have completed phonics have focused reading lessons three times a week following the novel study approach, with an additional slot split between comprehension skills and a visit to the school library. Books are carefully chosen to introduce children to a broad range of authors and stories, both classic and modern. Some of our books include Charlotte’s Web, How to Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Macbeth and The Highwayman. Through these lessons, children develop reading fluency, learn skills from the different reading domains and develop their thinking and discussion skills when talking about characters and plots.
Writing
Subject Intent
At Willenhall Community Primary School we want our children to be confident writers across a range of text types. Our writing curriculum is based around high quality texts giving children inspiring starting points. Our writing structure allows children to explore and analyse good examples, equips children with the grammatical skills they need to write and allows them to explore and gather ideas before drafting, revising and publishing a piece of writing. We have high expectations for handwriting.
Subject Coverage
Writing begins in Nursery with mark making, attention giving and gross and fine motor skills. Children have the opportunity to write in different ways and with different implements e.g. chalk, paintbrushes and to develop the core strength and motor skills that will be essential for later writing.
As children progress, they will begin to write their name and labels for familiar objects and characters before beginning to write simple sentences.
The skills of saying, holding and writing sounds and sentences are developed through the RWI phonics scheme. Children in EYFS and Year 1 also have the opportunity to apply their skills and write throughout their continuous provision.
Once children have completed RWI in Year 2, they move on to dedicated daily writing lessons. These are linked to our class books, studied in the reading lessons. We follow a bespoke writing structure, beginning with a ‘hook’ lesson to engage children’s interest – this could be anything from a Stone Age day to a Survival experience! We then look at a model text, identify the features and learn the grammatical skills needed to be successful in the text type. Children have the opportunity to work on a shared write and gather their ideas before drafting, revising, editing and publishing their work. Publishing could be reading aloud to another class, making a class book or even having your work published in a real book, as some children’s poems were last year!
Spelling
At Willenhall Community Primary School, our aim is for children to leave our school as confident spellers. By the time they leave Year 6, pupils’ spelling of most words taught so far should be accurate and they should be able to spell words that they have not yet been taught by using what they have learnt about how spelling works in English.
We achieve this by timetabling taught spelling several times a week, as appropriate to the different needs of different year groups, providing intervention for children whose spelling needs to catch up, tracking and monitoring spelling provision and sending spelling tasks home for children to practise at home.
At Willenhall Community Primary School we use the Spelling Shed scheme (EdShed - Educational products for spelling, phonics, literacy and maths) for taught lessons and spelling practice from Year 2 onwards. Teachers have access to spelling lesson plans, powerpoints and worksheets and children have access to online games to practise their spelling. Spelling Shed lessons focus on rules and patterns, the morphology and etymology of different words as well as the syllables and phonemes within words. They provide varied fluency tasks as well as reasoning about spelling.
Handwriting
In Early Years, we begin with the RWI letter formation, using the language that matches the phonics scheme. From Year 1, children begin to use the letterjoin handwriting scheme, although the familiar language from RWI will still be used. Cursive is introduced from Spring Term 2 in Year 2. By Year 4, joined handwriting is expected and children can earn their ‘pen license’. Handwriting is taught explicitly through modelling and practise, with time spent on handwriting decreasing as children become more fluent as they move up the year groups.
Enrichment opportunities to enhance the subject:
Writing competitions
Poetry competitions with Young Writers – leading to work being published in a book
Events linked to writing (e.g. the Quidditch day) which give rise to writing opportunities
Hook lessons to engage interest – e.g. a walk in the woods, survival experience
Trips and visits – e.g. Year 5 Shakespeare day
Author visits
World Book Day
We celebrate reading events within school e.g. World Book Day
Regular library visits creating community links
Recommended texts to support reading across the curriculum
Our new school library gives our children the opportunity to choose books for pleasure
Children have the opportunity to train as junior librarian
Selected topic books to ensure age appropriate texts to support reading across topic.
EYFS and KS1 parent/carer workshops for reading and phonics