English
Writing Rationale 2024 – 2025
The Intent, Implementation and Impact of our Curriculum
Intent
At Smallberry Green, we believe that all groups of pupils including those with SEND, PPG, EAL and most able, should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and understanding through their writing. Therefore, our writing curriculum is fully inclusive and designed to meet the needs of all of our groups of learners. We want all pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, developing conscious control, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We believe that all pupils should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a good, joined, cursive handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school. We believe that all good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. We do not put ceilings on what pupils can achieve in writing and we do not hold pre-conceptions about any pupils’ ability to make progress. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both grammar, spelling and composition skills, and so we want to encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school.
Implementation
- Classroom organisation: We at Smallberry Green pride ourselves in our ability to deliver quality lessons which are tailored to each cohort; this may be a mixture of whole-class teaching or split input method where necessary, to ensure that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Within lessons, our teachers and teaching assistants target support for all groups including children with SEND, EAL, PPG and most able, to ensure all pupils can make at least expected progress. For some, this may involve a greater level of scaffolding and access to additional support materials such as Writers Toolkits, Word Banks or a greater level of modelling. Rapid graspers are given opportunities to extend their writing in a variety of ways, including the challenge of demonstrating greater control in their writing, a deeper understanding of the impact that their writing has on the reader and by using a higher level of vocabulary and grammar features.Spellings: At Smallberry Green, phonics and spelling are an integral part of the writing process and we follow the Jane Considine Spelling scheme where children from Years 2-6 are provided with 10 spellings to both take home and are displayed on a ‘Spell it Out’ board in classrooms for a fortnight. The spellings are written in black, whilst the sound buttons will marked in red and the syllables, with a straight green line. Each week, the children will have an opportunity to complete a spelling investigation (20 minutes) and a quick task (10 minutes) which will analyse the etymology and morphology of the words for children to understand the spelling pattern’s origins which in turn, will support the children to make deeper connections and find value in the words they are learning. Throughout the week, children will be encouraged to generate other words which correspond to the spelling patterns they are learning, to reinforce their subject knowledge. On the third week, a spelling test will conducted based on the 10 words on the ‘Spell it Out’ board. The test has both a written part and a spoken part where children participate in ‘chotting’ where they generate other words that have the same spelling patterns. Children are also provided with a ‘Focus Five’ which are displayed at the back of English books and these are bespoke to each child and are taken from the baseline originally then from their independent writing – these words are pitched strategically to provide challenge but also ensure that statutory words from each year group are spelt correctly. Throughout the school, the pupils are encouraged to understand and find out the meaning of unfamiliar words, to identify incorrect spellings within their own writing and to edit their spellings accordingly.
Grammar and Punctuation: Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons as much as possible. Teachers plan to teach the required skills through the genres of writing that they are teaching, linking it to the genre to make it contextual with the intended writing outcome. This allows all groups of children to have the opportunity to embed and develop their understanding or to consolidate their skills.
English Lesson Sequence:
Each year group covers a broad range of writing genres, both narrative and composition. These have been planned to ensure correct coverage of the key genres as well as build upon skills progressively across the school. At Smallberry Green, we follow Jane Considine’s ‘The Write Stuff’ approach. This combines a variety of sentence stacking lessons, where imaginative and technical language is collected by pupils and experience days; where children are given the opportunity to immerse themselves in exciting tasks and build upon context. We want children to be effective communicators who can manipulate language to explain, persuade, report and advise. Moreover, we pride ourselves in teaching and modelling fourteen different genres for our children to draft and perfect, which in turn will provide them with a brilliant foundation to one day, become magnificent writers. Depending on the genre and its complexity, teachers can build up stamina, formality and fluency within a three/four-week period but some genres may lend themselves to a shorter unit. Children will complete an extended write in their Writing books, which will be used to assess the pupil’s skills against the agreed success criteria. In addition to this, children are expected to write a cross-curricular piece of extended writing termly to demonstrate that they are able to effectively transfer their skills to the wider curriculum.
A WAGOLL – What a good one looks like – is created based on the stimulus text and supports pupils to identify and mimic the identified features in their own writing. Non-fiction units are also taught using a quality WAGOLL, which is often made bespoke by teachers or taken from the writing scheme of work. These are shared with pupils on the English Working Wall.
Impact
- All pupils enjoy writing across a range of genres.
- Pupils of all abilities are able to succeed in all English lessons because work is appropriately scaffolded and differentiated.
- All pupils have an increasing wide vocabulary that they use within their writing, reading, speaking and listening.
- Pupils have a good knowledge of how to adapt their writing based on the context and audience.
- Pupils leave Smallberry Green school being able to effectively apply spelling rules and patterns they have been taught.
- All pupils can debate, discuss, present and recite information confidently as they have had consistent experience of practising these skills across the English and writing Curriculum.
English Writing Curriculum Maps
English Genres Outline – 2026-27
Phonics and Reading Rationale
The Intent, Implementation and Impact of our Curriculum
Intent
At Smallberry Green, we use a synthetic phonics programme called ‘SoundsWrite’ produced by First Rate Phonics. The Sounds Write approach is based on the sounds in speech, and is a linguistic phonics programme. It begins with the sounds in language and moves from the sounds to the written word. Within our SoundsWrite teaching we are continually building on the children’s conceptual knowledge and skills. These are:
Conceptual Knowledge
- Letters are symbols (spellings) that represent sounds.
- A sound may be spelled by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters.
- The same sound can be spelled in more than one way.
- Many spellings can represent more than one sound.
Skills
- Blending – the ability to push sounds together to build words.
- Segmenting – the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words.
- Phoneme manipulation – the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words.
Through teaching these skills and knowledge we give our children the tools to attempt to decode and read any word they are presented with.
As part of this, all children, including those with SEND, EAL, PPG and most able, have daily phonics sessions where they participate in speaking, listening and spelling activities that are matched to their developing needs. The teachers draw upon observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are stretched and challenged and to identify children who may need additional support. Children work through the Initial Code to begin with, which gradually builds on skills and knowledge teaching them all single letter phonemes and a selection of digraphs.
Once Children have completed the Initial Code they should be able to:
- Blend
- Segment
- Manipulate sounds and spellings
They can perform these three skills proficiently in simple 3, 4, and 5 sound words with the structures CVC, VCC, CVCC, CCVC, CCCVC and CCVCC
Pupils also know that:
- Sounds in speech are represented by letters
- A sound can be represented by a one-letter spelling
- Some sounds can be represented by a two letter spelling.
When Children are secure in this code knowledge they begin the Extended Code. Within this section children continue their phonics journey by:
- Increasing their code knowledge
- Their awareness that a spelling can represent more than one sound. (is and sat)
- That a sound can be spelt in different ways (train/plane)
At Smallberry Green, we believe that all pupils should have the opportunity to be fluent, confident readers, who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts. We promote a love for reading by ensuring that all of the children are exposed to high quality texts that are incorporated and brought to life throughout our learning journey. As reading is at the heart of our curriculum, we have selected challenging class texts which we believe will enthuse our children and expose them to new vocabulary.
Implementation
Through the teaching of Sounds Write, all children are taught the essential skills needed for reading. Phonics is taught daily to all children in Foundation Stage, and KS1 in a half hour session, as well to those groups of children who need extra phonics intervention in KS2.
Children within Reception are taught in a whole class setting during the Autumn and Spring terms and then streamed by ability towards the Summer term. Year 1 children are streamed by ability from the beginning of the year. These groups are assessed each half term, or when a gap in a child’s learning is identified and children are moved into a suitable group to match their phonics skills. We believe this approach enables staff to ensure an application of phonics skills in a rich literacy environment for early readers.
Each afternoon children who need extra support to keep up with the classes’ learning are taken for intervention sessions to review and apply the day’s phonics teaching or skills they are not yet comfortable with such as blending, segmenting or code knowledge.
Pupils have regular reading sessions with an adult, we ensure the pupils are regularly practising and applying their phonics knowledge. In the EYFS the continuous provision matches the pupil’s current knowledge and understanding whilst ensuring the children are suitable challenged, through talk and their play.
In addition, we also use a Sounds Write based reading scheme which we have invested heavily in so all children take home books to support their current learning in phonics, this ensures progression in both word reading skills and comprehension. The scheme is structured to ensure that children have access to a wide range of texts, and allows for pupils to develop their skills within a level before moving to the next level. All pupils have a home-reading record which they are encouraged to take home daily. Parents and carers are asked to add comments to the home-reading records to indicate how much pupils have read.
Key Stage 2 Reading
At Smallberry Green, we use a whole class teaching approach with reading that ensures progression in both word reading skills and comprehension. The weekly activities are structured to ensure that children have opportunities to dissect their class texts and have access to other reading material in order for them to build reading stamina and strengthen their high-order reading skills such as; evaluating author’s intent, and using quotes for their justifications and opinions.
Reading skills sessions
We believe the most effective approach to develop comprehension skills is through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction. With the new National Curriculum split into three key areas: Reading for Pleasure, Vocabulary Development and Oral Comprehension, a whole class approach to reading will enable children to develop their skills within each of these.
All pupils at Smallberry Green will be given the opportunity to read aloud, listen to a text read by a teacher or peer and develop their ability to be able to discuss what they have heard in a constructive way. Unfamiliar vocabulary will be explored and explained within a familiar context (class text), ensuring a breadth and depth to their reading as well as enhancing their enjoyment.
Discussion about high quality literature via the class texts is set out from the very beginning at Smallberry Green and the quality of the children’s contribution to these discussions and the evaluations that proceed will develop throughout their time with us, with teachers ensuring that this is always to a high standard. We expect our staff to model high expectations of discussion, an enjoyment and pleasure in reading and a desire to learn and experiment with new and unfamiliar vocabulary.
What does Reading Skills look like in the classroom?
Children’s language comprehension is developed through our high-quality class texts and cold texts which are chosen from a variety of genres. Children’s reading skills are strengthened through a range of guided and independent tasks.
Monday: Extracts from class text are the primary focus where children dissect the reading material unpicking words, identifying figurative language and summarising key points, looking at plot and character.
Tuesday: Children answer differentiated questions building upon their reasoning of the extracts read the previous day and evaluating author’s intentions.
Wednesday: Children are provided with a cold text with similar content, engaging with the material further.
Thursday: Children answer differentiated questions based upon the cold text read the previous day, developing their higher-order reading skills.
Friday: An extract from the class text is used where children are independently assessed on the learning step for the week, demonstrating what they have learnt, answering differentiated questions designed to challenge pupils.
Accelerated Reader
All children have access to accelerated reader which allows children to quiz on books that they have read both in and outside of school. It is a fantastic tool to track their reading ages and identify areas of development which children find challenging. At the beginning of each half-term children (from Year 2 onwards) sit a Star Reader test which provides children a reading age which correspond to colours in our school library. Each week children visit the library and can take a book of their choice and a book which corresponds to their reading age; this ensures children are given exposure to appropriate reading material which will support them to becoming resilient readers.
Reading for pleasure
Our reading curriculum strives to promote a life-long love of reading. Alongside daily reading lessons, all children are provided with the opportunity to read for pleasure for twenty minutes every day. We believe that when their reading opportunities increase, so does their fluency and stamina which in turn increases their enjoyment of reading. Therefore, the link between children’s motivation to read and reading for pleasure is reciprocal. We know that reading for pleasure is beneficial not only for reading outcomes, but for wider learning enjoyment and mental wellbeing. Therefore, we are committed to fostering a love of independent reading and building communities of engaged readers.
Impact
Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. Attainment in reading is measured using the statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage One and Two. These results are measured against the reading attainment of children nationally. Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1. However, we firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. We give all children the opportunity to enter the magical worlds that books open up to them. We promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. Children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and to review their books objectively. This enhances a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles.
Our key aims for phonics and reading:
- Pupils will enjoy reading across a range of genres
- Pupils of all abilities will be able to succeed in all reading lessons
- Pupils will use a range of strategies for decoding words, not solely relying on phonics
- Pupils will have a good knowledge of a range of authors
- Pupils will be ready to read in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education
- The % of pupils working at ARE within each year group will be at least in line with national averages.
- The % of pupils working at Greater Depth within each year group will be at least in line with national averages