English

At Lime Tree Primary Academy we believe that a first class English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion

One of our priorities is helping children read and develop their all-important comprehension skills.

We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning.

We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high quality education and will help give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.

At Lime Tree Academy we believe that a quality reading curriculum should develop a child’s love of reading. One of our priorities is helping children read and develop their all-important comprehension and decoding skills. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children inherit a love for reading and books. We have recently upgraded our library to include new reading for pleasure books which the children can borrow and a host of new Accelerated Reading texts to excite and engage the children.

These include a wide selection multi cultural texts and biographies of relevant significant individuals such as Captain Tom Moore and Greta Thunberg. We believe that a secure basis in reading skills is crucial to a high quality education and will help give our children the tools to access the rest of the curriculum fully and be secondary ready for their next phase in learning.

Curriculum Documents

Intent

- The overarching aim for English at Lime Tree School is to promote high standards of language, we aim to do this by equipping our children with a strong command of the spoken and written word, developing a genuine love for literature and promoting reading for enjoyment.

Our aims are for all of our pupils to:

· read easily, fluently and with good understanding

· develop the habit and love of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information

· acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language

· appreciate our rich and varied literary and cultural heritage

· write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes, audiences and cultures

· use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas

· are competent and confident in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Implementation

Expectations for curriculum planning at Lime Tree follow two phases (Long-term and Short-term). The National Curriculum and Statutory Framework for the EYFS detail the objectives and genres to be covered each year, our English curriculum is book-based and carefully planned to engage and excite all pupils by our teachers carefully mapping out and sequencing our lessons.

At Lime Tree, we teach reading through daily phonics and guided reading sessions. Phonics is taught through Read Write Inc. This is a rigorous, systematic synthetic phonics teaching programme for early reading and writing success. Children in EYFS and Year 1 have daily interactive phonics sessions and activities that teach sounds, blending, grapheme-phoneme correspondences, letter formation and pronunciation. To support this , our home reading scheme contains a blend of decodable and non- decodable books. Home readers are matched to the child’s phonetic development. Children also visit the school library once a week to choose a book that they can read alongside an adult. Children who graduate off from the Read Write Inc phonics scheme take part in daily guided reading sessions, that expose the children to a wide range of texts and develops their skills of identifying, comparing, contrasting and applying context. Reading is celebrated in all classrooms and breakout spaces at Tennyson Road Primary.

The teaching of writing at Tennyson Road is purposeful, robust and shows clear progression for all children. Teachers plan key pieces of writing for the children to complete every two weeks. During the lead up to this writing session children are taught explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives for each year group. As well as teaching to these objectives, teachers are able to embed the skills throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities.

Impact

The impact of our English curriculum is clear; progress, sustained learning and transferrable skills. Teachers are versed in adaptive teaching strategies and use live marking to formatively assess children as they are learning. Live marking ensures that errors are quickly identified and addressed by teachers. Where common misconceptions arise, teachers quickly reteach and rectify any misunderstandings. High quality interventions are planned for by class teachers where they have identified an area for development and they are carried out by teaching assistants as part of our intervention programme. Children are clear about their next steps needed to improve their reading and writing skills.