Intent

At Batley Parish CE Academy, English sits at the heart of our curriculum – it is through language, story and text that children learn to form concepts, connect ideas and express themselves. Through the varying dimensions of literacy, children learn to both make sense of the world and shape their place within it.

At Batley Parish CE Academy, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Read Write Inc, a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Read Write Inc progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
Through the teaching of reading and writing, we place a heavy emphasis on developing a child’s vocabulary and love of reading. We value reading as a key life skill and we are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. Ultimately, reading is key for academic success. By the time children leave Batley Parish in Year 6, the limited vocabulary that they arrived with in Reception, will have expanded vastly, giving them the language they need to understand increasingly difficult texts and express themselves in a wide range of contexts.
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 encourage them to use discussion to communicate and develop their learning.
We believe that children need to establish a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression, as they advance through the primary curriculum. Securing these skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.

Implementation

Our intent is embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum. We have a rigorous, systematic phonics scheme in place, to ensure all children are taught how to read. Our English curriculum provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion and we use a wide variety of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire our children. Teachers also ensure that cross curricular links are woven into the programme of study.
At Batley Parish, we encourage our children to make links within and across different texts and other curriculum subjects, to develop a deeper understanding of the English curriculum and transfer new skills across all lessons.
Teachers plan and teach clearly-sequenced English lessons, which are adapted to meet the particular needs of each child. We help each child maximise their potential by providing help and support where necessary whilst striving to make children independent workers once we have helped to equip them with the confidence, tools and strategies that they need. We identify any children who require additional support and provide intervention in the most effective and efficient way that we can to ensure no children are left behind.

We love to celebrate success of all learners and strive to help all children achieve their goals. English is celebrated in classrooms and around school, where our wonderful displays celebrate children’s writing, their favourite books and their reviews and thoughts on books they have read.  

In order to achieve our aims, our children have the opportunities to:

• practise and embed foundational knowledge e.g. letter formation, spelling, handwriting
• use and apply new skills through carefully dictated sentences
• easily, fluently and with good understanding, reading a range of different text types and genres.
• develop the habit 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 heritage.
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
• use discussion in order to learn; our children should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas.
• speak and listen, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debates.

Impact

With a well-established English curriculum, the impact should be clear: progress, sustained learning and transferrable skills. The impact across the English curriculum should demonstrate:

• A love of reading built within a book-rich environment.
• Pupils enjoy reading and are exposed to a broad range of texts and authors.
• Successful readers are nurtured through the good teaching of both language comprehension and word reading.
• Pupils are secure with foundational knowledge before they proceed with complex tasks
• Pupils have a good range of vocabulary that they are able to use in discussions and apply in their writing.
• Pupils have a good knowledge of how to adapt their writing for different purposes and audiences.
• Pupils have a solid foundation in spelling and have a toolkit of different strategies to support the continual learning of new spellings.
• Pupils are able to identify, use and apply grammatical features in their writing effectively across the curriculum.
• An expectation for our EYFS children to achieve ELG in Literacy and Communication and Language.
• An expectation for children to achieve national standard in the phonic screening check.
• An expectation for children to achieve national national standard in reading and writing, both at and above age-related expectations.

Progression of Reading

Through our reading curriculum, we ensure that:

• Pupils learn to read easily and fluently through daily phonic teaching in Early Years and Key Stage One, regular reading to adults in school, reading partners and incentives to read at home.
• Pupils are encouraged to read widely, through our use of differing class texts, passport books, library visits and high quality attractive books in classrooms.
• Pupils have a reading book which they take home.
• Pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure using quiet reading time, library time and listening to an adult read.
• Pupils are exposed to a range of texts during their school experience.
• Pupils also explore books/texts in whole class guided reading sessions.

First and foremost, we want all children at Batley Parish to develop a life-long love of reading that begins as soon as they step foot through our doors in nursery. To ensure we are successful in our approach to reading, we teach reading from all angles, as to miss no opportunity to spark a child’s love of reading. Through this love of reading, we deliver the programmes of study for reading at key stage one and two. These consist of three dimensions: fluency/prosody, word reading and comprehension. It is essential that teaching focuses on developing pupils’ competence in all dimensions to ensure children make the progress they are capable of.

We teach reading through Read Write Inc programme, a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Read Write Inc progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. To read more about how we teach phonics and how you can support your child, please visit our phonics page. 

In Early Years, children begin their reading journey by developing their vocabulary through purposeful role-play opportunities, child-led discussions, planned talk and oral sentence building. Children are given plenty of opportunities to develop their love of reading and language through stories, songs and rhymes. Through our core texts, children are exposed to specifically chosen books, where vocabulary and activities are pre-planned. As the children move through early years, the teacher introduces the concept of print and comprehension skills.

In Key Stage One, children continue to develop their reading and comprehension skills through through the continuation of the Read Write Inc Programme. Outside of the teaching of phonics, children in Key Stage One are exposed to regular shared reading, story sessions, whole class guided reading (Y2), individual reading with an adult and sharing of chosen library books. Children also have access to a range of books in the classroom that support their interests and broadens their exposure to a variety of texts. 

In Key Stage Two, children are exposed to a wider range of styles of texts and genres.  As they progress through school, the texts that children meet add more challenge to their ability to comprehend and infer. Throughout their journey in Key Stage Two, the focus is on developing higher order reading skills such as inference and deduction and the ability to read texts critically. Where necessary, specific phonic support is used to develop pupil’s reading skills. Reading skills are taught through daily whole class guided reading - which includes fluency development, vocabulary building, explicit teaching of reading skills and exposure to a wide range of question types and vocabulary. Each child in KS2, has a reading book which they take home to develop their reading skills at home. Towards the end of Key Stage Two, children hone and refine their skills, using all the knowledge acquired during their time in school.  During these opportunities, children develop their vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation and summarising skills, as well as being able to understand longer and complex texts. All Pupils are encouraged to choose books which they are interested in and this helps promote reading for pleasure. 

Teaching Of Reading

Through our reading curriculum, we ensure that:

• Pupils learn to read easily and fluently through daily phonic teaching in Early Years and Key Stage One, regular reading to adults in school, reading partners and incentives to read at home.
• Pupils are encouraged to read widely, through our use of differing class texts, passport books, library visits and high quality attractive books in classrooms.
• Pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure using quiet reading time, library time and listening to an adult read.
• Pupils are exposed to a range of texts during their school experience.
• Pupils also explore varied texts in guided reading sessions.

Reception

RWI is fully implemented in Reception by fully trained teachers and TAs, where the class will be split into groups after a baseline assessment is completed. Lessons take place every day and last up to 40 minutes. In reception, RWI sessions consist of: a speed sounds session, followed by handwriting and sentence writing. As well as learning to read and blend real words, children will have opportunities to apply their word reading skills when reading “nonsense words.” These are also known as “pseudo” words and feature heavily within the Year One Phonics Screening Check. Once children are successfully reading single words, they are introduced to “Ditty books”, a fully decodable book with sounds/words that they have been taught.

Year One

Children in year 1 (plus any children in Y2 and Y3, who have not completed the programme) are taught phonics in small groups, depending on their stage of learning. They have a daily RWI lessons lasting up to one hour. This lesson starts with a 10 minute speed sounds lesson, which teaches oral blending, new speed sounds and revision of previous speed sounds, oral blending, decoding words, reading common exception words, decoding ‘alien’ (pseudo) words, and spelling. Children then read and comprehend a book which is carefully matched to their phonics knowledge.

Targeted support to ensure every child learns to read

• Children are assessed regularly to ensure the speediest progress.
• Children who are falling behind or have gaps, are identified immediately and targeted support is planned for
• One-to-one tutoring is in place for pupils with gaps, providing quick keep up and support, ensuring they make rapid progress
• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen.
• If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, they are assessed regularly and receive regular phonics sessions through the “Fresh Start” programme.  

Reading (Years 2 – 6)

Guided Reading

Guided reading sessions take place in Year 2 -6. In Years 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, they take part in whole class guided reading every day. Each week follows the same structure to allow for coverage of skills and consistency across school.

Our reading sessions ensure children have the opportunity to practise and apply the following skills:

• Echo reading – pupils apply expression and prosody, as modelled by the expert teacher
• Choral reading – pupils have the opportunity for repeated practise of a previous piece of text. They read in unison with the rest of their peers
• Use new vocabulary – vocabulary instruction ensures that new and unfamiliar vocabulary is explicitly taught at the beginning of the week and revisited in each session
• Independent reading – children are taught to read to their partner, whilst their partner tracks the text with them
• Repeated practise – pupils have the opportunity to read/listen to the text 13 times over the course of the week
• Direct instruction of reading skills – pupils are explicitly taught how to answer specific reading questions such as: inference, vocabulary, retrieval, prediction etc.

These skills are taught based on the year group, the curriculum requirements and the needs of the class. The structure of the lessons are shown below: