St Oswald's CofE Primary School
English - Reading & Writing
At St Oswald’s, our English curriculum is designed to:
- Inspire pupils to become accomplished readers and writers. They will become readers who have a knowledge of an extensive and rich vocabulary, an excellent comprehension of texts and the motivation to read for both study and for pleasure. They will become writers who have an appreciation of its educational, cultural and entertainment values and develop the ability to write fluently on a number of topics and for a range of purposes. Opportunities such as author visits and writing competitions (resulting in published work) will demonstrate that reading and writing can lead to exciting careers and prospects.
- Ensure pupils embrace a range of diverse texts, written by a variety of authors. These will include classic texts from our literary heritage, as well as texts that highlight cultures and life experiences that may be similar or different to their own. They will be encouraged to embrace mistakes as an important part of learning. Written work will be edited and improved and children will take pride in their work.
- Enable pupils to succeed in becoming accomplished readers and writers. They will apply the skills they have learnt in lessons in order to make progress in these areas. They will be encouraged in their ambitions to become ‘Free Readers’; to earn their ‘pen licence’; receive their ‘emerald’, ‘sapphire’ and ‘gold’ reading awards and, ultimately, to achieve their reading and writing targets, which will allow them to continue their educational journey with confidence.
Curriculum Intent – Reading
- Excellent phonic knowledge and skills.
- Fluency and accuracy in reading across a wide range of contexts throughout the curriculum.
- Knowledge of an extensive and rich vocabulary.
- An excellent comprehension of texts.
- The motivation to read for both study and for pleasure.
- Extensive knowledge through having read a rich and diverse range of texts.
Breadth of Study
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In Key Stage 1 children will... • Listen to traditional tales. • Listen to a range of texts. • Learn some poems by heart. • Become familiar with a wide range of texts of different lengths. • Discuss books. • Use the class and school libraries. • Listen to short novels over time. |
In Key Stage 2 children will... • Read and listen to a wide range of styles of text. • Learn poetry by heart. • Increase familiarity with a wide range of books, including myths and legends, traditional stories, modern fiction, classic British fiction and books from other cultures. • Take part in conversations about books. • Use the class and school libraries. • Read and listen to whole books. |
Curriculum Intent – Writing
• The ability to write fluently and with interesting detail on a number of topics throughout the curriculum.
• The ability to write for a range of purposes.
• A vivid imagination which makes readers engage with and enjoy their writing.
• A highly developed vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description.
• Well-organised and structured writing, which includes a variety of sentence structures.
• Excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented, punctuated correctly and spelt correctly.
• A love of writing and an appreciation of its educational, cultural and entertainment values.
Breadth of Study – text types
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KS1 Fiction: • Write stories set in places pupils have been. • Write stories with imaginary settings. • Write stories and plays that use the language of fairy tales and traditional tales. • Write stories that mimic significant authors. • Write narrative diaries. • Write poems that use pattern, rhyme and description. |
Non-Fiction: • Write labels. • Write lists. • Write captions. • Write instructions. • Write recounts. • Write glossaries. • Present information. • Write non-chronological reports. |
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KS2 Fiction: • Write stories set in places pupils have been. • Write stories that contain mythical, legendary or historical characters or events. • Write stories of adventure. • Write stories of mystery and suspense. • Write letters and diary entries. • Write plays. • Write stories, letters, scripts and fictional biographies inspired by reading across the curriculum. • Write poems. |
Non-fiction: • Write instructions. • Write recounts. • Write persuasively. • Write explanations. • Write non-chronological reports. • Write biographies. • Write arguments. • Write formally. |
The Write Stuff Approach
As a school, we have adopted ‘The Write Stuff’ by Jane Considine to bring clarity to the mechanics of writing.
‘The Write Stuff’ follows a method called ‘Sentence Stacking’, which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own learning.
This approach makes sure that all of our children are exposed to high quality texts that stimulate high quality reading, writing and listening and speaking opportunities. We encourage writing through all curriculum areas and for different purposes. We use high quality texts to model examples of good writing.
The Write Stuff is based on two guiding principles; teaching sequences that slide between 'experience days' and 'sentence stacking lessons'. With modelling at the heart of them, the sentence stacking lessons are broken into bite-sized chunks and taught under the structural framework of ‘The Writing Rainbow’. Teachers prepare children for writing by modelling the ideas, grammar and techniques of writing.
Sentence Stacking lesson structure:
- Initiate section: a stimulus to generate vocabulary and set up a sentence.
- Model section: the teacher models a sentence – live, in the moment – that outlines clear writing features and techniques.
- Enable section: the children write their sentence, following the model.
The Write Stuff also reinforces grammar through the use of:
- FANTASTIC lenses - an acronym that summarises the ideas of writing.
- GRAMMARISTIC lenses - an acronym for the grammar-based tools of writing.
- BOOMTASTIC lenses - an acronym for the figurative language and poetic devices that can make our writing more engaging.
Key benefits of The Write Stuff:
- Supports teachers so that they have a deeper and more flexible knowledge of sentence structure
- Pupils understand how to apply sentence scaffolds to their independent writing as they develop their expertise.
- Standards improve because many worked examples are provided over the year that extend understanding through a wide range of genres and non-fiction text types.
- Children have a clear view of what high quality writing looks like and their learning is structured clearly and misconceptions dealt with.
- Pupils know how to improve their writing and make it more focused. Actionable feedback is provided to guide their learning.
- Children have a concept of how to build, plan and complete a piece of writing due to narrative maps and non-fiction shapes.
- Teachers have clear pathways of how to guide pupils in traditionally challenging areas such as cohesion and paragraphs.