English

English at DWJS: Vision and Intent

Our vision at DWJS is for our pupils to develop a lifelong love of reading and to become enthusiastic and creative writers.

Reading at DWJS
We aim for our pupils to read with fluency and meaning for both pleasure and purpose. All children have access to a wide range of genres and high-quality texts in lessons, our school library and our book corners. We use ambitious, engaging texts to develop children’s reading skills and foster a love of reading, as well as to deepen their understanding of the wider curriculum and the world around them.

Writing at DWJS

Our aim is for children to leave DWJS as confident, creative and capable writers, who use writing to express themselves and to communicate with others. Children are given opportunities to write for a range of purposes, carefully considering their audience and how style and vocabulary choices can impact their reader. They also learn to edit and reflect upon their own and others’ writing. 

English Curriculum Overview: Implementation

The National Curriculum (2014) clearly states that teaching the English language is an essential, if not the most essential, role of a primary school. At DWJS, we recognise that without effective communication, little achievement can be made. We follow the CUSP curriculum for Spelling, Reading and Writing, which is built on the requirements of the National Curriculum and also aims to embed evidence-based best practice principles at the heart of the school's curricular provision.

Oracy and Spoken English

The National Curriculum states that pupils should be ‘taught to speak clearly and convey ideas confidently in Standard English’ (p10).

Spoken Language Teaching Strategies

The four strands to speaking and listening are:

1. speaking;
2. listening and responding;
3. group discussion and interaction
4. drama

These oral skills are directly taught, modelled and sensitively encouraged in whole class and small group settings. Opportunities across the whole curriculum are planned for and developed. Children play an active part in presentations, topic talks, group discussions, debates and drama activities on a regular basis.

Reading

The CUSP literature spine offers a broad range of high-quality texts. Its core purpose is to offer every child a mirror in which to see themselves and a window to see a world beyond their own. Lessons are structured in two-week blocks; week one focuses on retrieval and week two focuses on inference. The blocks are centred around a core text, with supplementary extracts to improve children’s understanding of the text and to add context, as well as exposing them to different text types.

Reading is taught for thirty minutes a day, and every lesson is focused around an explicit reading skill. The core elements of each lesson are: 

• Fluency - children are given the opportunity to develop their fluency skills through a range of activities, including choral reading, echo reading, performance reading, text marking, timed practice and paired reading. 
• Explicit vocabulary instruction
• Teaching centred around the specific reading skill. Teachers model the skill, then children complete a practice activity before applying their learning to an independent task.

Writing 

We follow the CUSP  curriculum for writing; this provides children with opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences. The curriculum follows a two-block structure, meaning that the children write each genre twice so that they consolidate and build upon their learning. For every unit, children are given a high-quality model so that they can understand the key features of that genre. There is then explicit teaching of skills required over a number of lessons before children begin to plan their final piece of writing. They build up their extended writing over a few lessons and are then taught how to edit for meaning, impact and for secretarial changes. Each lesson incorporates explicit vocabulary instruction, which children are then encouraged to include in their writing.

Spelling

We follow the CUSP approach for the teaching of spelling, focusing on learning spelling rules rather than particular words. The spelling tracker is used to assess spelling each term, and children are then placed into sets accordingly so that they learn the rules they need to improve their spelling. They are encouraged to use their focus spelling rules in their writing and to spot the words in books they are reading.

Grammar and Punctuation

This is taught explicitly in Writing lessons or intervention slots. CUSP incorporates grammar and punctuation into its lessons, but teachers also use Appendix 2 of the National Curriculum to inform their grammar and punctuation provision.

• Primary National Curriculum for English

Impact

Our English curriculum provides the children with the core knowledge and skills that they need to communicate in terms of both their receptive and expressive language. It also instills in them the confidence to engage with the spoken and written word so that they can get the most out of their time in school, both now and in the future. Talk is a positive feature of our classrooms and is used effectively to support learning across the curriculum. Children select a range of books to read for pleasure and purpose, and are confident to explore different and more challenging texts across a range of genres. They employ their wide-ranging writing skills effectively, demonstrating a flair for language and the ability to communicate with the reader according to their purpose. Outcomes evidence that our English curriculum prepares children to read and write during the current stage of their education and beyond.

English as Another Language (EAL)