english

Intent, Implementation and Impact of the English Curriculum

Intent

At Harnham Junior School we believe that English is not only the key to accessing a wide and enriching curriculum, but that it also the key to accessing to world around us. Our aim is to ensure every child becomes primary literate and progresses in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening. So they enter the world as literate adults, we want children to leave Harnham Junior School viewing themselves as ‘readers’, ‘writers’ and ‘confident speakers’.

We believe that it is every child’s right to read for pleasure and know that reading for pleasure feeds directly into writing. Reading widely leads to increases in writing ability, text comprehension, grammar and breadth of vocabulary. Children should leave Harnham Junior School not only being able to decode books, but able to both comprehend them and see them as a source of pleasure that will stay with them for life. Reading is not only academically important, but also plays a vital role in children’s social development: reading helps children to develop skills of empathy; a sense of fun and humour and an understanding of the world around them that is wider than their own experiences.

At Harnham Junior School, we believe that pupils must be encouraged to read books by a wide variety of authors and from a range of genres. We ensure that all children have access to high quality texts, we know our children well and are driven by their interests when selecting books. Our class books are chosen using the ‘Head, Heart, Hand’ approach, something which guides us to choose the best possible books to suit our children. As part of our pupil premium provision, we ensure that all children have access to books at home. It is our belief that teachers play a vital role in modelling reading for pleasure and a love of books. As a school, we recognise the importance of children knowing how to browse and choose books, reading widely and often and being able to immerse themselves in the different worlds of the books they read. Reading events, book weeks and author visits open children’s eyes to the links between reading and writing and further demonstrate and instil a love of English.

We believe in the importance of writing for pleasure, instilling a desire to write. Children will discover their own writing voice, and leave school feeling confident and happy when engaging with the different processes of writing. Through opportunities to write for a purpose, across a range of genres, our children will see writing as something to be proud of and celebrate. We intend for pupils at Harnham to be proud of their writing and gain pleasure in sharing it with others.

It is important that our children leave school as confident speakers, who are able to express themselves and engage in conversations with wide varieties of people and within many different contexts. We understand the importance of modelling speaking to children using Standard English and ensure children have opportunities to develop their public speaking skills.

Implementation

To achieve our intent at Harnham Junior School, to teach children life skills that will positively impact on their future, we aim to deliver high-quality teaching and learning opportunities that lead all children to view themselves as ‘readers’, ‘writers’ and ‘confident speakers’.

Reading

‘To instil a true love of reading, you need to live, breathe and show the wonder of books.’

At Harnham Junior School, Reading is taught in Guided Reading sessions 5 times per week. Pupils are taught as a whole-class so that they are read with every day and continue to develop a love for reading, through accessing high-quality texts. Children are taught to apply their reading skills across a range of whole texts and extracts from a variety of genres. Guided reading sessions involve a variety of activities such as:

• Comprehension questions.

• Sequencing a text.

• Drawing and labelling a setting or character description.

• Drama/character hot seating.

• Summarising for a peer.

• Labelling moments in the text with moods and emotions.

• Using drawings and actions when learning new vocabulary.

Our Reading LTP shows sets out which skills need to be taught each term in each year group. There is some overlapping of skills, alongside a main skill to be taught each term. Our Reading Progression Map shows teachers (in more detail) what this skill involves in their year group.

Throughout the year, children are exposed to both fiction and non-fiction texts. Vocabulary is taught explicitly each week. Reading aloud, oral discussions and (where applicable) drama form the majority of each lesson.

Reading Every Day

At Harnham Junior School, we model reading for pleasure. A class story is read aloud by the teacher at the end of every school day.

Pupils are encouraged to read books by a wide variety of authors and from a range of genres. This will include books for improvement and books for enjoyment. Books for improvement will often include ‘classic’ novels and non-fiction texts such as biographies or fact books with topic themes (e.g. history/geography/art). We believe these books will further the children’s vocabulary and language development. We help children to develop good reading habits and a love of reading by actively encouraging children to read books for enjoyment as well as for improvement.

We have high expectations for pupils’ home reading, as we know the impact this has on their reading at school and expect all children to read daily and record this in their home reading records.

Reading Challenges

Reading records are reviewed by the class teacher and TA on a weekly basis. Each week a ‘Reader of the Week’ will be nominated from the class, for celebration in assembly, this may highlight regular reading, effort, progress, thoughtful comments etc.

Throughout the school year, children will be presented with reading challenges e.g. Library competitions, class teachers will monitor and encourage participation.

Writing Lessons

When pupils join Harnham Junior school in Year 3, their writing lessons follow the Talk For Writing Approach; whereby a unit of work is planned based around an appropriate text and the shared planning and writing approach is used to develop the children’s final piece, this allows for opportunities for collaborative working while exposing children to a variety of new text types and the writing expectations of Harnham Junior School.

As children move through Harnham Junior School, units of writing are structured to allow for clear progression. Literacy lessons involve the teaching of vocabulary and SPaG through daily DLOs, in the context of a text/topic, with children then being given the opportunity to apply these skills in their Big Write. Literacy units include opportunities for text talk, planning and editing, with an emphasis placed on the sharing and celebration of a final piece of work.

Fiction and non-fiction units are taught every half term and are linked to Year Group topics, creating immersive writing experiences.

Our School Writing Genre Map sets out the genres to be taught each term, ensuring breadth of coverage and progression across the school. Our Writing Skills Progression Map is used to ensure the progression of skills taught within a genre across each year group.

Spelling

At Harnham Junior School, we teach children explicitly to spell following the Read-Write-Inc Scheme, implemented through daily 15-minute sessions.

When the children want to know how to spell a word, we teach them to attempt a spelling themselves before asking for adult support. We encourage and model the use of dictionaries to find spellings.

Responding to the impact of Covid-19

In response to the impact of the Covid-19 school closure, we are adapting the way we teach English as part of our recovery-curriculum.

As we are aware that many children did not read regularly at home during the school closure period, we have increased Guided reading sessions from 4 to 5 times per week. This enables teachers to spend more time reading with the children in their class and to explore more texts throughout the year.

During the school closure, all children in receipt of Pupil Premium were given new books of their own to keep. This was designed to encourage families to read together at home and ensure these children had access to books while away from the school environment.

Class books for the first term of 2020-2021, were chosen due to their rich vocabulary and high-quality text, alongside their exciting story line. We ensured the books chosen would leave our children wanting to hear the next part each day, in order to support their positive return to school. During our 3-week recovery-curriculum phase, teachers timetabled additional daily reading slots, using the stories as an opportunity to build relationships with the children in their classes upon their return to school.

Through viewing the work that our children uploaded to SeeSaw during the school closure, we were aware that cursive handwriting standards had fallen. We subsequently invested in the Letter-join handwriting scheme. Handwriting is now taught in discrete lessons 5 times per week and teachers are modelling high expectations in regard to cursive handwriting.

We are aware that many children have returned to school unable to write for a sustained period of time and our English recovery-curriculum planning has been designed to help re-build children’s writing stamina.

Teachers are using our School Reading and Writing Progression Maps to ensure all skills are covered at an appropriate level. Progression Maps are being used to ensure skills from previous year groups, which may have been missed as a result of school closures, are also secure.

Impact

The Harnham Junior School English curriculum aims to not only develop the skills and knowledge needed for reading, writing, speaking and listening, but also to develop a sense of pleasure and pride in these areas. Our curriculum is designed to enable our children to view themselves as ‘readers’, ‘writers’ and ‘confident speakers’ beyond their time at Harnham Junior school, as we know this will have a lasting positive impact on their adult lives.