English

At Morice Town, it is our intent for all learners to be good communicators. They will establish this through speaking and listening tasks developed through oracy. They will be confident readers, who have the ability to decode and comprehend a variety of texts. Children will develop storyteller voices - when reading aloud - and a love of reading to help children to be lifelong learners. We strive to provide an engaging and enjoyable curriculum using a range of appealing texts to form the basis of our writing curriculum. These aim to support all types of learners and will, wherever possible, link to the topic the children will be studying at that time. 

It is also our aim for all children to leave being able to communicate coherently through writing - at length - in a variety of texts and genres, demonstrating their resourcefulness.

The schools’ English curriculum ensures a wide range of opportunities to develop skills in speaking and listening, through use of Oracy (use of sentence stems), text discussion (in English, Read Write Inc, class reader time and Reading Masters sessions) and through use of a ‘Talk for Writing’ style approach where appropriate.

Our English writing curriculum uses a mixture of speaking and listening, reading and writing to create a balance of genres and high quality texts.  We use a mixture of interesting texts often linked to topics where appropriate.  A 10-12 day writing sequence approach is used across the school alongside the use of colourful semantics, WAGOLLs (what a good one looks like) and success criteria.   Written outcomes are expected on a daily basis which include 3 x substantial pieces of writing: a bite-size write on day 1, a short burst write on day 5 and an extended independent write on day 9.  There is an emphasis on editing and improving work on day 10.

Our Phonics curriculum uses Read Write Inc to develop reading, writing and spelling from Nursery to KS1 and also supports children further up the school where intervention is necessary. This ensures KS1 children are achieving the EXS for phonics screening and reading in Y2 as well as supporting children who have not achieved this at KS2.Children, who learn RWI, have access to books that match their phonetic ability and have access to 3 books – one they have learnt in class, one ‘book bag book’ using sounds previously learnt and a reading for pleasure book from the school library. This helps children to decode confidently and fluently at their level with a view to then improving comprehension skills.

Across the rest of the school, pupils have access to high quality texts through daily ‘Reading Masters’ lessons, where we use ‘Reading Masters’ to structure these lessons. They focus on developing pupils’ reading fluency and comprehension skills. In addition, children listen to challenging class novels to promote and develop reading for pleasure. In the EYFS and KS1 the children are exposed to a ‘Favourite 5’ which is 5 books that are read and re-read over the course of a term.  These books are selected from the Pie Corbett Reading Spine.

Children within our EYFS unit, receive a ‘Strong Start’ in reading following our robust phonics scheme.  Children within our Nursery begin to learn phonics in the Summer term to prepare them for the next stage of their education. 

The EYFS unit is a literature rich environment encouraging word curiosity and therefore creating opportunities for speaking and listening at all times.  By the end of the children’s journey in EYFS, they are familiar with elements of the 10-12 day writing sequence in readiness for Year 1. 

Children working within the lowest 20% of the class for reading receive regular intervention to ensure that they continue to make progress.  Phonics groups are homogeneous to ensure pupils receive the appropriate provision.  Within writing, lessons are adapted to enable all pupils to access their learning.  Adaptions could include…colourful semantics, word mats, visual aids, writing frames and WAGOLLs.