Welcome to English

Reading

At Ark Ayrton, our aim is to ensure that all children become highly skilled readers, working at or above the National Standard and also develop a love of reading, so that they become life-long readers. We aim to ensure that children have a balanced reading diet, comprising of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and classics, exposing them to the great literary writers both past and present. Reading is at the heart and soul of our curriculum and books drive and support learning. The rest of the foundation subjects stem from our School book spine and drive the organisation of our curriculum.

Writing

At Ark Ayrton Primary Academy, as books and reading are at the heart of our curriculum, writing is also very much driven by the whole class text studied in reading time. It is our intention to provide children with a high-quality education in English that will teach them to become enthusiastic and confident writers, who can write fluently, communicate their ideas effectively and be able to access and interact with the world around them.

It is also our aim that every child should develop a fluent, legible and personalised style of handwriting by the time they leave the Academy in Year Six. Capital and lower case letters should be formed appropriately and the letter size and shape should be consistent. As an Academy, we fully acknowledge that handwriting is not a natural skill; rather it is a motor activity which needs to be taught explicitly through teacher modelling and children practising. Therefore, we provide opportunities for all children to develop, practise and perfect the skills of handwriting. Alongside this, we also provide targeted support to any child, who has been identified as experiencing difficulties.

We believe a successful primary writer:

• is passionate about writing, as a craft whereby they can write fluently, communicating their ideas effectively and is able to access and interact with the world around them.
• develops an awareness of audience, purpose, and format
• uses an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar
• practises, uses, and applies cursive handwriting
• understands that writing is a journey, whereby editing and improving their writing is part of an author’s skillset
• is provided with the skills to successfully edit and improve their writing, with a large emphasis on the impact of the reader
• is exposed to writing taught in a cross curricular way, which links to knowledge being taught in other curriculum areas
• is prepared for the next stage in their education and leaves us being able to write confidently and communicate effectively
• is supported effectively to write at a high standard, regardless of their individual starting point

Reading across the Curriculum

At Ark Ayrton, our Horizons curriculum is based around a book and additional whole class reading time in the afternoon drives the topic, science and other curriculum areas. All children are actively encouraged and provided with opportunities to apply their skills of reading to all subject areas. For example, in our weekly PE lessons, children read an article relating to the sport they are going to play. In Science, children read about famous scientists and the discoveries which they have made.

Support for Readers

At Ark Ayrton, we believe that every child regardless of reading ability should have the opportunity to be exposed to different types of texts and authors, otherwise the gap widens and children begin to not see themselves as readers. Therefore, we will never take children out for reading intervention during class reading time in both the mornings and afternoons. We provide additional time for Reading interventions delivered by the class TA at some point during the afternoon. All children across the school from year 1 to year 5 attend an additional phonics or reading fluency interventions four times a week.

Impact

The impact of our writing curriculum is measured and assess through children’s independent writing: the knowledge and skills they have retained and can apply. The children will be creative writers with a passion for English.

In order to measure success we:

• assess each individual piece of independent writing against the teacher assessment framework for each year group to identify successes and children’s next steps
• assess responses to questioning during every lesson
• look at the application of previous taught skills in pieces of writing

In addition to our Writing curriculum, we provide enrichment through:

• trips and visits linked to the children’s learning
• visitors
• workshops

Our writing journey

As books and reading are at the heart of our curriculum, writing is also very much driven by the whole class text studied in reading lessons in order to ensure that children have the knowledge needed to be able to write in different contexts. It is from this text that children use as a stimulus for writing. We strongly believe that writing is a journey and teachers use their understanding of each child, knowing what skills and knowledge have been previously taught to start planning for each new unit. Teachers will then create lesson plans which will ensure that any gaps in the sequencing of knowledge and learning are addressed. We are fully aware of the importance of children writing independently and therefore children write about something different to the teacher, to ensure they take ownership and independence over their writing and ideas. Once the children have crafted their piece of writing, they are provided with the skills of how to successfully edit and improve their creations, with a large emphasis on the impact of their writing on the reader.

As leaders, we made the conscious and deliberate decision, following research into writing, to ensure our writing journey, for both fiction and non-fiction, give children the opportunity to plan, draft, revise and publish their own creations. During each writing unit, children are taught grammar skills that link explicitly with the unit and see the grammar modelled clearly within the genre and content of the unit.

We understand how important it is for children to be exposed to high quality modelled texts. During every writing journey, children receive modelled and shared writing with their teacher. The teachers craft their own version of the fiction or non-fiction genre which is written to a high quality and includes the ‘think-aloud’ for sharing of grammar purposes, reasons for certain language choices and the effect words and phrases would have on the reader. Teachers use the ‘think-aloud’ to explain reasons for language choices, remind children about the expectations of punctuation used and recapping how to use any grammar skills within the sentence. From research, we understand the importance of this, which is why it features in every writing journey.

Our writing journey varies from a 3-4 week unit depending on the text type, genre of writing and stage of the child within the school. The writing journey will look different for a KS1 child to a KS2 child.

Writing area in the Library

As a school, it is imperative to us that children understand the relationship between reading and writing. We cannot have amazing books to read if there is no one to write them!

Handwriting

At Ark Ayrton, we teach children cursive handwriting. Please see our handwriting policy for the progression in joins. In every year group, children have the opportunity to achieve their bronze award, silver award and then finally their gold award in handwriting to receive their pen licence, or pencil licence if they are in EYFS or Year 1.

At Ark Ayrton, we teach the children to master their letter formation by ensuring consistency in shape and size before moving them on to cursive handwriting when they are ready. In Reception, the children are taught ball and stick and then gradually introduced to cursive joins once letter formation is secure and the individual child is ready to progress. Handwriting is taught explicitly in short, frequent sessions, whereby it is modelled by the teacher. In EYFS and KS1, it is linked to phonics, which help children to form ‘muscle memorys’ linking sounds to handwriting. KS2 children practice their handwriting in their class literacy books in order to reinforce the consistent high expectations of their handwriting: KS1 and EYFS practice in their Read, Write Inc books.

Spelling

At Ark Ayrton, spellings from the National Curriculum are explicitly taught and shared on a Friday and tested on the following Friday. These weekly spellings are taught and practised daily for 15 minutes through a series of different activities; word searches, sentence dictation, LCWC (Look Cover Write Check), sentence writing with a word bank and unscramble the words. Spelling homework also goes home on a Friday and is due in on a Friday. Spellings are assessed on a weekly and half termly basis.

Reading

Writing

All Year 1 subjects Next Year 1 Subject - Science

Reading

Writing

All Year 2 subjects Next Year 2 Subject - Science

Reading

Writing

All Year 3 subjects Next Year 3 Subject - Science

Reading

Writing

All Year 4 subjects Next Year 4 Subject - Science

Reading

Writing

All Year 5 subjects Next Year 5 Subject - Science

Reading

Writing

All Year 6 subjects Next Year 6 Subject - Science