Brudenell Primary School

When we are teaching English, we focus on motivating all the children, and building on their skills, knowledge and understanding so that they reach the highest level of personal achievement. We use the school curriculum plan and the national curriculum to guide our teaching. This sets out the aims, objectives and values of the school, and details what is to be taught to each year group. Our English curriculum is taught during daily lessons through which all elements of English are taught: speaking and listening, reading and comprehension skills and grammar, spelling, punctuation, transcription and composition skills in writing. In all year groups, these daily lessons are supported with additional sessions in spelling, grammar, handwriting and guided reading sessions.

We plan our lessons with clear learning objectives. We take these objectives from the National Curriculum and our own progression map. Our lesson plans contain information about the tasks to be set, the resources needed, higher order questions to ask and how we will assess the children's work. We evaluate all lessons, so that we can modify and improve our future teaching.

Using Quality Texts

As a stimulus and inspiration for all of our English work, all of our writing units are based around a quality text. These texts are also linked to our over-arching topics. Each half term, every class will read a text in English lessons and will be taught their reading, grammar and punctuation and writing lessons based on the events, content, features and characters in the studied text. The way in which we link these texts to out English curriculum is laid out in the English LTP.

A love of reading

As well as promoting effective teaching of the English curriculum, we know how important it is that our children develop an interest and enjoyment in literacy – particularly a love of reading. At Brudenell we have worked hard to develop reading for the pleasure and children’s love of reading through a range of initiatives such as: snuggle packs, book talk, book tasting, competitions and our reading shed for pupils to enjoy reading at play and lunchtimes.

English or being literate in any language is a fundamental life skill; it develops the children’s ability to communicate effectively - to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of purposes.

Children are enabled to express themselves creatively and imaginatively as they become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama, as well as a range of non-fiction texts.

Children gain an understanding of how language works by looking at its patterns, structures and origins. Children use their knowledge, skills and understanding across a range of different situations.

Brudenell Primary School works to ensure that all children develop the ability to communicate effectively and that any barriers to learning are swiftly identified and

steps taken to remove them.

Aims

1. To enable children to use and understand language as speakers, readers and writers.

2. To encourage children to be competent, confident and independent in the use of language.

3. To provide the opportunity to monitor and assess the language development of each child.

4. To develop children’s awareness of different audiences and purposes for speaking and writing.

5. To enable children to use the English language in all areas of the curriculum.

6. To encourage a whole school approach to language.

7. To identify as soon as possible any children having special educational needs so

any barriers to learning can be overcome.

Resources

Our classrooms are attractive learning environments. We change displays regularly, so that the classroom reflects the topics studied by the children. Working walls are used in Literacy as a daily teaching tool. We try to ensure that all children have the opportunity to display their best work at some time during the year. We believe that a stimulating environment sets the climate for learning, and that an exciting classroom promotes independent use of resources, which results in high-quality work by the children.

Children and adults have access to a range of resources, including online resources and schemes, in the classroom to support teachers in developing pupil’s learning, skills and understanding across the English curriculum.
These resources include:

• A wide range of literature to suit all ages
• Spelling shed for home spelling practise
• Nelson handwriting scheme
• Nessy to support phonics interventions
• Developing Early Grammar and Grammar for Writing
• Oxford reading tree in EYFS
• Rising Stars writing assessments

Assessment

Teachers make on-going assessments of each child's progress, and they use this information when planning their lessons. It enables them to take into account the abilities of all their children. Our prime focus is to further develop the knowledge and skills of all our children. We strive to ensure that all tasks set are appropriate to each child's level of ability. When planning work for children with special educational needs, we give due regard to information and targets contained in the children's Individual Education Plans (IEPs). Teachers modify teaching and learning as appropriate for children with disabilities. We value each child as a unique individual, and teachers are familiar with the relevant equal opportunities legislation covering race, gender and disability. We will strive to meet the needs of all our children, and to ensure that we meet all statutory requirements related to matters of inclusion.

We review the progress of each child at termly pupil progress meetings and at the end of the academic year, and create intervention groups to those children who require extra support. As well as this, teachers and support staff learning intervention complete case studies on the progress of the pupils and the data which

All of our teachers reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and plan their professional development accordingly. We do all we can to support our teachers in developing their skills, so that they can continually improve their practice. Teachers and support staff also take part in action research projects to improve the teaching and learning across the curriculum or with identified groups. This past year, all staff have focused their action research on developing the teaching of reading and the teaching learning strategies for either whole classes or identified groups.

Feedback

In English lessons, like other areas of the curriculum, quality feedback is used to support and progress the learning of all pupils. This feedback comes in a range of forms:

• Verbal feedback to advise the children of ways to improve immediately for example in reading or spelling.
• Written feedback – following the marking policy.
• Self-assessment – reflection against LO, Success criteria, making edits to SPAG elements or ticking off criteria on a learning ladder.
• Peer-assessment – giving feedback based on the LO and SC for a task, often using prompt questions to support.
• Learning ladders – a list of criteria to include in a piece of writing used to inform quality feedback.