English

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At Bannerman Road, we aim to foster a love of the English language through reading, writing and the spoken word. We recognise that words are powerful tools and we believe that every child has the right to be able to read and write effectively and to be able to communicate in different ways with others. To achieve this, English has a high profile within the school. We follow the National Curriculum for English, ensuring all pupils:

Read easily, fluently and with good understanding
Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistics conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
Write clearly and coherently, adapting their language and style for a range of purposes and audiences
Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
Are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

Phonics

At Bannerman Road we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children have the strategies to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. We also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

We value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Foundations for phonics in Nursery

We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
- sharing high-quality stories and poems
- learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
- activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
- attention to high-quality language.

We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

We teach phonics for 20 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
We follow the https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Programme-Overview_Reception-and-Year-1-1.pdfprogrammes expectation of progress:
- Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Daily phonics lessons in Year 2

We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. Children are streamed based on the phase they are working within.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

Any child who needs additional practice has regular Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
These short, sharp lessons last 15-20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions at least three times a week.
Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
- decoding
- prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
In Years 2 - 6, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Home Reading

Children who are receiving phonics intervention must only read decodable books.
In Reception and KS2 the decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.
In KS1, children read 1:1 with an adult and take this decodable book home.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

Assessment for learning
- Daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
- Weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
Summative assessment
- Every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
Fluency assessment
- When children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books to measure fluency.
- To assess when children are ready to exit their programme. This is when they read the final fluency assessment at 60–70+ words per minute.

Writing

At Bannerman Road, we want every child to view themselves as an author. We intend to create confident, independent writers who develop stamina for writing.

Oracy is used as a precursor to the written word and exposes them to new vocabulary and a variety of sentence structures. Learners are immersed in language through exposure to high quality texts (including a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry) and these, along with enquiry launch days, learning through play, trips and visitors are used to help children be inspired by the familiar and curious about the unknown. This provides children with rich and real experiences that they can then apply to written tasks. Whole class, group and paired talk are used to support early composition and organisation of ideas.

Children are taught handwriting according to the Nelson handwriting scheme through direct teaching time each week and teachers ensure the progression of letter formation, sizing and joining is reinforced through all writing opportunities across the curriculum.

We aim for our learners to have a secure understanding of the purpose of a text type, the intended audience and the impact of quality composition and carefully selected vocabulary. Our learners are challenged to view mistakes as an integral part of the learning process. This process encourages children to be resilient, challenged and to keep practicing. We actively encourage pupils to view writing as a process that requires editing and redrafting to enable them to be successful authors.

Helpful Documents:

Writing with your child at home - PowerPoint Guide

Reading

At Bannerman, reading is a key driver for the curriculum and we value it as a key life skill. We are dedicated to ensuring that every child is an active reader and no child is left behind. We intend to foster curiosity, resilience, knowledge and imagination through reading. We aim for all children to read fluently and expressively, reading for pleasure and information/purpose. We are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers.

Our daily reading lessons teach a range of reading skills which give children the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary and texts whilst also maintaining a focus on reading for pleasure. Lessons are supplemented by visits to our Reading Bus, poetry focussed celebratory assemblies, engagement in a variety of World Book Day activities and a strong focus on the importance of reading at home, celebrating taking responsibility for this through our Green Reader awards.

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