English at Gilbrook School

Intent

At Gilbrook School we believe that providing pupils with a well-balanced, enriching and engaging english curriculum will aid them in developing a love of language, and help them to have the necessary skills to become confident speakers, readers and writers as they journey throughout life.

Staff at Gilbrook help to build children’s confidence with their literacy skills by identifying their areas of strength and promoting these abilities. Each child is recognised as an individual with their own particular learning style and educational needs and therefore staff offer a personalised learning experience which will help each individual flourish and progress.

Implementation
Baseline and on-going Assessment

When a child starts at Gilbrook staff will use a range of tools to gauge a child’s abilities in English. These include LASS – provides a reading and spelling age as well creating a profile of visual and working memory.
PM Benchmarking – this will place children appropriately on the schools reading scheme and assess comprehension skills. 

Curriculum Overview – staff assess the child’s writing against curriculum objectives giving a clear curriculum stage.
Reading Eggs – placement assessment will put children’s on the correct entry level for phased phonics teaching.

These assessments will be repeated termly to ensure progress is carefully monitored and assessment information can be used to match teaching to the child’s level of development.

Strategies for teaching writing

Across the school, we use “Cornerstones” – a creative curriculum planning tool. Cornerstones provides thematic cross curricular units. It draws on the children’s interests to motivate and inspire writing through the use of memorable experiences, modern texts and ICT and other media.

Children develop the necessary skills through;

• Modelling of writing in shared and guided sessions across the curriculum.
• Development of knowledge in spelling, punctuation and grammar during daily lessons.
• Multi sensory activities – children learn letters and spelling patterns by writing them in alternative ways e.g. in the sand, using magnetic letters etc.
• Opportunities for oral rehearsal.
• Opportunities to self and peer assess before editing and re-drafting.

Phonics teaching

Children develop early skills for reading and writing through systematic synethetic phonics. This is delivered to all children working at Foundation or KS1 levels through the programme FAST PHONICS. This is an online teaching tool which engages children in the reading and writing of words through a range of videos, games, online reading books and rewards. This is supplemented in class by the use of multi sensory teaching strategies to engage every
kind of learner – making words with play dough, writing in shaving foam, sandpaper letters, magnetic letters etc.

Strategies for teaching Reading

Children read using the Reading Planet scheme by Pearson. They read individually every day with an adult using books which are closely matched to their phonics stage or book band.
Children can also access books through Reading Eggs or the follow up online scheme – Reading Eggspress Teachers can assign books to children which they then access on line. This allows children to access the books at home as well as in school. There is also a reading response sheet for each book allowing children to
respond to the text in their writing. Children also have access to books through the school library and class reading corners. Reading corners are updated and kept looking fresh and inviting.
Classrooms are a text rich environment with clear labels and displays using text which the children can read.
School also plan experiences throughout the year to promote reading for enjoyment – such as celebrating World Book Day, visiting the library or visits from guest readers or authors.

Handwriting

Children have a daily opportunity to develop handwriting using a print style. This could be through; 

• Development of fine motor skills – threading, peg boards
• Pencil control activities
• Advancement through the Spectrum Handwriting Programme Additional Support

Any children who may benefit from extra support in either reading or writing should be referred to the English Leader by the class teacher. Gilbrook has specific intervention teachers. They will work with the English leader to design programmes using a range of multi-sensory approaches which may help the child to advance in any particular area. A child will access the intervention programme 3xper week and their progress across each session
is carefully recorded and assessed.

Assessment, Recording and Reporting

Teachers undertake regular formative assessment in order to identify children’s progress. This is normally carried out during the course of teaching, for example, hearing children read, spelling tests or assessment of written work. Teachers should report progress each half term to the SLT using target tracker. The SLT and English leader will monitor the progress across the school and report to governors.

Intended Impact

• Pupils enjoy reading and listening to stories and can use texts to support their learning across the curriculum. 
• Pupils show increased confidence and demonstrate resilience when reading or
  writing.
• Pupils language development is enhanced and they acquire a wider vocabulary.
• Pupils will leave primary school being able to apply spelling rules and patterns that they have been taught.
• Pupils will enjoy writing across a range of genres
• Pupils will make significant progress towards personal EHCP targets.

 

KS1 

Learning Project	ILP/KPI Focus	Core Skills – KPIs	SEAL & Life Skills	Intent	Implementation	Impact
Term 1 All About Me	Know 46 graphemes – use to blend and segment.  Compose a sentence orally before writing.	Bug club phonics – differentiated.  All About Me Booklets – write basic sentences about self – using HFW’s.	Understanding self, families, hobbies.	Promote knowledge and independence in basic literacy skills.	Differentiated phonics teaching.  Writing scaffolds to support sentence writing.	Measure progress termly using Bug Club phonics assessment.
Term 2 Scrumdiddly- umtious	English	Recipes and instructions	Lighthouse Keepers Lunch – Recipes and instructions for a pack lunch, cakes, jellies,	Understanding self, families, hobbies.	Promote knowledge and independence in basic literacy skills.	Differentiated phonics teaching.  Writing scaffolds to support sentence writing.
Term 3 Paws, Claws and Whiskers	Know 46 graphemes – use to blend and segment.  Create non-fiction writing – fact files. Write a recount using descriptive sentences.	Bug club phonics – differentiated.  Write fact files for different animals using headings and subheadings. Write a recount of a day at Chester zoo using descriptive sentences.	Developing confidence and independent writing.	Promote knowledge and independence in basic literacy skills.	Differentiated phonics teaching.  Writing scaffolds to support sentence writing.	Measure progress termly using Bug Club phonics assessment. Promote independent sentence writing using scaffolds.

 

KS2

Topic	ILP/KPI Focus	Core skills – KPIs	SEAL and life skills	Intent	Implementation	Impact
Term 1.1 A child’s war	Letters Diary writing	Proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors. Ensure the consistent and correct use of tense thought a piece of writing.	To promote social and communication skills by knowing the conventions of letter and diary writing.	Promote knowledge and independence in writing	Promote communication with high learning expectations using a range of suitable teaching styles.	Pupils will feel confident to write their own letter.
Term 1.2 Blue Abyss	English: poetry using personification; Dilemma stories	Compose and rehearse sentences orally (including dialogue), progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and increasing range of sentence structures. In narratives create settings, characters and plot. Discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination.	To show empathy towards others. Tolerance and acceptance.	Develop confidence in reading and speaking aloud to a group.	Modelling examples to the class. Offer pupils the opportunity to read to other classes.	To become a more confident writer and speaker, promoting passion and emotion.
Term 2.1 Mighty Metals	Non-chronological Reports; Instructions	Discuss and record ideas. Identify how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning.	To understand how our emotions can impact others.	To present work in various ways to support your best learning style.	Looking at mind maps, speech bubbles, cartoon strips etc.	Allowing all students to find a way of recording their work in a variety of ways regardless of their needs.
Term 2.2 Pharaohs	Mystery stories Play scripts	Assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing. Participate in discussions, presentations, performances and role-play.	Think about the lives of people living in other places and times, and people with different values and customs.	To use your imagination to create a mystery story.	Study the diary of Howard Carter ‘on entering the tomb of Tutankhamun’.	To become and independent writer and promote an enjoyment for writing.
Term 3.1 Burps Bottoms and Bile	Fantasy narratives. Persuasive texts	To organise paragraphs and more complicated text around a particular theme. Participate in discussions and present their work to the class.	To take turns and listen to others whilst taking turns and asking pertinent questions.	To develop their understanding and knowledge of chosen texts and others work.	Visit the world museum and space Port to inspire creative writing ideas.	To become more confident in presenting their work and ideas to their peers.
Term 3.2 Hola Mexico	Postcards Myths and Legends	Use vocabulary to create appropriate atmosphere to imagine they have been sent to the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico and they are writing a postcard home. Use dialogue effectively to create characters and move action forward in their own myth.	Think about the lives of people living in other places and times, and people with different values and customs.	To use your imagination to create a mystery story.	Study the diary of Howard Carter ‘on entering the tomb of Tutankhamun’.	To become and independent writer and promote an enjoyment for writing.