Reading 

Curriculum Intent 

Our children will leave school with a life – long love of reading and books. They will develop the fluency and confidence to successfully enjoy and understand a wide range of texts across the whole curriculum. They will develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information, and know that reading is an open door to expanding their world. Our children will explore genres and appreciate the work of a wide range of authors, developing preferences and making discoveries. They will develop a love of language, build a wide vocabulary, develop a range of reading strategies, experience unfamiliar settings, meet new characters and develop a deeper level of empathy. They will learn to enjoy reading aloud with developing prosody.  Research tells us that reading for pleasure has many non-literacy benefits and can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and improve wellbeing throughout life. (The Reading Agency, 2015) Students who read for pleasure make significantly more progress in vocabulary, spelling, and maths than children who read very little. (Sullivan and Brown, 2013) 

 

Curriculum Implementation 

From the beginning of Reception, our children develop their early reading skills through the consistent and robust teaching of the daily systematic, synthetic phonics programme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Children have books that match and support their phonics development and ability and are encouraged to read them at home with an adult. Daily ‘keep up’ sessions ensure all children make progress and ‘Let’s Read’ sessions - focusing on prosody, comprehension, and decoding - are timetabled three times per week.  

Children enjoy listening to challenging texts through daily, dedicated story time in EYFS and KS1. 

From Y2 to Y6, our children continue to develop their fluency and comprehension through whole class reading. The WLT scheme ensures a clear skills progression within a wide variety of high – quality, diverse text types. Whole class VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval, and the ability to Sequence or Summarise) are taught at least three times per week. Individual reading interventions and extra reading sessions are provided for children who are catching up or not reading regularly at home. 

Reading skills are continually developed through the wider curriculum where children are exposed to a wide range of quality texts providing context to learning. 

Parents and teachers comment on children’s progress through the Home School Reading Diary: this communication is fundamental in helping each child to develop to their full potential. 

We provide a text - rich environment, to encourage a positive culture of reading throughout all classes. High quality reading displays support learning across the curriculum and inviting book corners foster a love of reading.  We provide enrichment opportunities to inspire reading, hosting author workshops, visiting GHS library and celebrating World Book Day.  

 

Curriculum Impact  

Children enjoy reading and choose to do so. They talk enthusiastically about books. They read fluently and with understanding and can discuss their opinions and preferences. They read aloud confidently with intonation and expression. They employ an increasingly wide range of reading skills:  they recognise ambitious vocabulary in context and can make inferences and deductions; they can predict events and summarise a text; they can compare texts and give reasons for their judgements. Children can evaluate, comment, and compare different styles of writers – providing evidence and explanations.  They read an extensive range of fiction and non-fiction texts, both for pleasure and to support their wider learning. Parents know how they can support their child’s reading at home.  

Class library – inviting, fosters a love of reading, appealing, well organised. 

No more than 30 – 40 good quality books at any one time.  

All books to have large golden star sticker. 

Books organised into clearly labelled sections e.g. poetry, our favourites, stories about animals, graphic novels, award winners etc. 

Reading diary 

Must be acknowledged every day. 

Children expected to read at least 4 times a week. 

Children need 1 book from the class library that they share at home. 

KS1 and YR need another decodable book - challenging but manageable for the reader (90% word accuracy). 

Reading records 

Your spotlight children (lowest 20%) must be heard read at least once a week by an adult. 

Make sure you know who the children who haven’t passed their phonic check are – target these children whenever you read aloud from the IWB. 

Reading Raffle Rewards 

Wishlists 

Y6 have an amazon wishlist which is shared with parents. Speak to Bev/Ange if you would like to set up something similar for your year group. 

Library 

There will be a weekly slot to visit the Jubilee Library.  

Y6 Librarians. 

Whole Class Reading 

Recorded in booklets.  

30-minute sessions. 

Take the opportunity to hear children read aloud to assess their fluency. 

Reading display 

VIPERS 

Current book 

Key vocabulary 

Reading Buddies 

Y6s paired with spotlight Y3 children – read 10 minutes daily. 

 

 

Writing 

Curriculum Intent 

At Abbey Primary School, we believe that writing is a key skill for life both inside and out of education and that is why it features across all the subjects taught across our school. Our aim is to provide children with key transferable writing skills which build year on year throughout their education. We want our children to view writing as a lifelong skill that we continue to develop whatever our age.  

Our children develop a genuine love of language through a text-based approach which links closely to our reading curriculum. Children master the knowledge and skills required to choose and use the appropriate genre, form and formality. Children will write for a purpose and a variety of audiences to ensure they see themselves as real writers. We encourage children to take ownership of their writing, from initial ideas through organising, planning and editing to final publication if appropriate, and to mirror this process throughout the wider curriculum. Writing across all subject areas will prepare our children for high school and the more in-depth approach to analysing, planning and innovating their writing. 

 

Curriculum Implementation 

We immerse our children in a wide variety of writing opportunities across the curriculum. Quality texts and films feature at the heart of the writing curriculum: our WLT scheme of work.  

Planning supports the development of each genre for writing and identifies desired outcomes to ensure there is breadth and depth in writing opportunity. 

Children are encouraged to orally rehearse their ideas and are taught using a mixture of modelled, shared and guided writing. Independent writing is encouraged in the form of short, mirrored learning or as longer, complete pieces of work. 

Children transfer their key topic knowledge and vocabulary into their writing and vice versa, transfer their spelling, grammar, and punctuation knowledge into other subject areas. We expect the high standards for writing in literacy lessons to be evident within the work in all books. 

All children are given next steps (at least twice a week) to support individual progress. Proof reading and editing is planned in each lesson and children respond to this in red pen. Writing is scaffolded to support those children working below age-related outcomes. 

  

A high standard of joined, cursive handwriting is modelled across school and children are encouraged to imitate this. Handwriting is taught and practised regularly following a rigorous scheme however high expectations are expected to be evidenced throughout all work produced. 

Teachers at Abbey use working walls to support independence in learning through every step of a writing unit. The working walls are focussed on the specific learning objectives and are updated regularly throughout each unit.  

 

Curriculum Impact  

Children enjoy being authors and sharing their writing. They communicate their ideas and emotions effectively and creatively through spoken and written language. Assessment in writing is ongoing - teachers carry out in-depth assessment of children’s writing at the end of each unit and highlight the age-related outcomes that have been achieved. Progress across classes is closely monitored by the subject leader and senior leadership team. Monitoring includes regular book looks, lesson observations, gathering evidence of good practice, pupil voice interviews, termly moderation and regular learning walks. 

 

Books 

A4+ yellow 8mm lined KS2 

A4+ yellow 12mm Y2 

A4+ yellow 15mm lined Y1 

Book covers are being reviewed so please wait. 

Shared writing 

Must be planned.  

Make sure you have a clear teaching focus in each line/paragraph e.g. using conjunctions for cohesion, using expanded noun phrase for description, using dialogue to show character.  

Websites / resources 

Literacy Tree 

Literacy Shed 

Descriptosaurus 

All children must have independent access to dictionaries and thesauruses 

http://www.teachprimary.com/index.php/download/pie-corbett/success: good exemplar texts 

Working Wall  

Modelled writing. 

Key features of the text type. 

Key vocabulary. 

Any story maps. 

Marking 

Green - spellings corrected in every lesson.  

Green - grammar corrected in every lesson.  

Pink – title/LO if achieved; examples in text where achieved; examples relevant to their TAF; examples relevant to their SSP. Every lesson. 

Pink – where to improve – twice a week.