Welcome to English

At Ark Castledown, English sits at the heart of the curriculum. It is through talking, reading, writing and vocabulary acquisition that children learn to communicate ideas, express themselves deeply and to understand the world in which they live.  Children leaving KS2 will be able to read fluently at their chronological age and write effectively for a range of purposes, being adventurous with vocabulary and draw from their reading.  In order to do this we provide high quality texts to ignite and enthuse our pupils. 

Reading

Ark Castledown is committed to putting reading at the centre of our curriculum and ensuring that every child is a reader.  We have a two pronged approach to reading; we want to instil our pupils with a deep and lifelong love of books and language, whilst also providing them with the skills to read, developing both decoding and comprehension in partnership. All pupils should leave our school with the ability to read, write and speak in the academic language that they will need to be successful in secondary school and beyond

We place a huge importance on learning the skills of reading, developing both decoding and comprehension in partnership. We want all children to become confident and skilled readers with a lifelong love of books.

Writing

Our writing Curriculum enables our children to become creative, confident writers who write clearly and accurately and can adapt their language and style for a range of purposes and audiences. All children are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing, and to plan, revise and evaluate their work. They will also develop an awareness of the audience and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. We aim for all pupils to leave school being able to use fluent, legible and speedy handwriting.

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To ensure a strong start in Early Reading, we use the Read Write Inc synthetic phonics programme, which is proven to develop fluent, enthusiastic readers, deep comprehension of texts, confident speakers and keen writers. Our team of RWI Practitioners are relentless in their dedication to ensuring each and every child  learns to read as quickly as possible.

Children from Reception to Year 2 receive a daily RWI lessons, with opportunities throughout the school day to practise and apply the taught skills. Year 1 and Year 2 pupils also benefit from having an additional speed sound lesson in the afternoon to further embed the skills taught in the morning RWI lesson.  

Young readers develop at different rates and the ability of readers in a class can vary. To accommodate this, we group our pupils by ability for these sessions. We track our pupil’s progress with termly assessments, and use this assessment data to review and update our groupings.

RWI Progression

Read to Succeed

Children in Year 2 upwards participate in Read to Succeed sessions, teaching them to develop their fluency, vocabulary understanding and comprehension skills. Within the Read to Succeed sessions, children are taught the skills to analyse the text with an emphasis on the understanding of vocabulary and authorial intent. Children will also learn how to make links and connections between texts and be able to discuss themes, make deductions and discuss their feelings and preferences towards the text studied. Year groups have a spine text for each term to work from to extend the children’s understanding of authors and genres.  As a result of this, these books play an integral part in supporting the development children’s writing skills.  In addition, supplementary texts from a range of genres including poetry and non-fiction are interwoven through the reading programme to ensure pupils are exposed to a wealth of quality texts.

Reading for pleasure   

At Ark Castledown we we strive to become a reading school where all children and adults read for pleasure and can share in the joy of books. All our children have access to a shared library, well stocked with a wide variety of quality texts which are continuously updated and reviewed. These books are discussed and recommended as a class, during the Reading for Pleasure sessions. Children make informed choices about their own reading preferences based on the discussions in class. In order to promote reading for pleasure, we designate specific weekly timetabled slots. We ensure that during these times children can read books of their choice, have social interactions about books and share their views and feelings about authors, illustrators and genres. 

Reading at home  

The most effective thing any parent can do to help their child succeed at school is to read with them regularly. Children in all year groups are expected to complete home reading, and to log this in their reading records. Communication with parents takes place throughout the year, with regular reading updates, workshops and more.

At Ark Castledown, writing begins from a very early age - as soon as a child can mark make. Gross and fine motor skills are developed through our provision within EYFS, ensuring all children are developmentally prepared to form letters correctly (taught in Read Write Inc) along with the correct pencil grip.

In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, children are taught the skills of writing through storytelling and discussion which supports their ability to structure the text and independently write in the chosen genre. A two-week unit is planned for English writing lessons, which begins with children analysing the model text and unpicking the grammatical features and organisation. As the unit progresses, teachers model and scaffold writing tasks, giving children the chance to practise the transcriptional and compositional skills needed to write independently. Throughout the two weeks, teachers will also plan in opportunities for “check-point activities” to assess learning and address misconceptions which may arise before a quality piece of independent writing is achieved. Intentional monitoring is used throughout the lessons to provide the children with timely and constructive feedback, which has an immediate impact on their writing progress.

The English writing curriculum is designed, containing grammatical knowledge from our sentence level curriculum and is built upon through the use of engaging and challenging texts each term. Children are introduced to a range of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in order to guarantee their exposure to a rich tapestry of English literature, as well as providing them with imaginative writing opportunities. This range of texts ensures the children not only understand the structural and technical knowledge of language but are also inspired to become successful writers who can communicate effectively and write for a variety of purposes.

Spelling

Our spelling curriculum begins with the Read Write Inc Phonics Programme taught in Early Years and Year 1 and follows onto our Castledown spelling programme which is created using The Spelling Shed. This programme develops children’s understanding of spelling rules and common exception words in each year group following the National Curriculum set rules and common exception word lists. Children receive a short, fast-past spelling lesson three times per week where they are taught a spelling rule; opportunities are then given to practise this rule throughout the week. The approach also allows opportunity for rules to be revisited and revised throughout the year to consolidate understanding and prepares children for the higher demands of the English Spelling Curriculum in upper KS2.

Handwriting

We use WriteWell to support teachers in the progression of handwriting across the school. This supports the transcription and fluency of pupils to support them in their writing lessons. As well as practising letter formation in daily phonics lessons, all year groups across the school receive handwriting sessions.  In Year 2, children will begin to learn to join their handwriting using the first four joins. In Key Stage 2, children continue to work on joining, legibility and writing with stamina; receiving a pen licence when they can write fluently in a neat, cursive style (commonly by the end of Year 4).  Handwriting progress is celebrated across the school through handwriting hero displays and published displays on corridor displays.

Transcription Progression

All Year 1 subjects Next Year 1 Subject - Science

All Year 2 subjects Next Year 2 Subject - Science

All Year 3 subjects Next Year 3 Subject - Science

All Year 4 subjects Next Year 4 Subject - Science

All Year 5 subjects Next Year 5 Subject - Science

All Year 6 subjects Next Year 6 Subject - Science