What an English lesson looks like in our school
Writing
The TWHF ENRich Writing curriculum, is at the heart of our whole curriculum. The writing curriculum is designed so that the teaching and learning of new writing knowledge and skills is progressive and complements the ongoing literacy fluency development.
In each year group, through every unit, teachers will explicitly teach new knowledge and skills, centred around a specific genre /purpose for writing. New knowledge and skills will be introduced, taught, practised and refined through a "5 phase" process. Initially, children are immersed in the unit genre/writing purpose through a powerful stimulus which they will explore through a range of oracy activities. From here, pupils are expertly taught how to apply the new skills and are given opportunities to develop this through well- planned deliberate practice activities. Pupils will then apply these skills to a focused writing task where they can draft, edit and revise.
Finally, pupils are given various means to present and publish their final piece of writing to celebrate with their chosen audience. Simultaneously, pupils will be given regular opportunities to refine and develop their vocabulary, communication skills, spelling accuracy and handwriting style.
Reading
To develop RICH knowledge and skills, pupils will be exposed to daily explicit word reading teaching. It is important to ensure a balance of word reading and language comprehension development across the week. In EYFS and Year 1, pupils' word reading development is embedded within the SSP programme. Simultaneously, pupils in EYFS and Year 1 will also have the opportunity to high-quality book talk.
As pupils become phonologically aware, the focus of the teaching of word reading will shift towards developing fluency. When pupils move through the school, daily whole class lessons will ensure pupils' reading accuracy; automaticity (speed) and prosody keeps pace with the level of text required for their age.
To support pupils who fall behind, additional "accelerated" catch up interventions will be put in place. To further develop RICH knowledge and skills, pupils will also be exposed to daily language comprehension teaching. As pupils move away from the SSP programme (in Year 2 and KS2), daily whole class lessons will be delivered. Centred around high-quality extracts and texts (with aspirational vocabulary), pupils will be explicitly taught language comprehension skills and strategies, enabling them to first understand and then explore the level of text they are required to read for their age.
What you might see...
- Children work on adapted tasks individually or collaboratively
- Each piece of work has a clear learning question related to the National Curriculum for English.
- High level questioning and mini-plenaries throughout the lesson share misconceptions, pose questions and challenge ideas.
- Children are encouraged to discuss their ideas and their reasons for them.
- English skills are regularly reinforced in other subject areas.
- Children repeat basic skills regularly through discretely taught lessons, pre and post teaching and early morning activities.
- Working Walls provide children with toolkits required to achieve success within the lesson.
This is our philosophy:
- All children, regardless of ability, are given the opportunity to maximise their Literal understanding and development through lessons that challenge and support their existing knowledge and build upon it.
- Children learn to enjoy English and recognise that making mistakes is an essential part of their learning process.
- High quality teaching and questioning from early years onwards will support children in developing their English skills.
- Those with English aptitude are challenged and nurtured to work at a higher level whilst those who may need support are supported and developed.
- Access to high quality texts
- High quality modelling and scaffolding of reading skills
- Develop fluent readers who can comprehend
- Develop confident readers who can transfer decoding and comprehension skills across the curriculum
This is what we do:
- Weekly English sessions are planned to meet objectives set out in the national curriculum. Planning may be adapted during the week in response to assessment for learning carried out on a daily basis.
- During the lesson, children are given feedback by teachers or TAs. This will extend learning, address misconceptions or consolidate understanding.
- In early years, we encourage the development of language skills through social play, mark making and story sharing.
- For one to one early reading, both at home and in school, children have fully decodable books that are closely matched to the phonemes (sounds) they are learning in class.
- Skills are modelled to facilitate communication between peers and adults.
- We teach synthetic phonics and use Supersonic phonics as our primary scheme.
- At KS1 and Early Years, we use the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach
- We use an integrated programme of speaking, listening, reading and writing
- We provide opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught skills
- Shared writing sessions, encouraging collaborative writing
- We provide opportunities for writing across different genres
- Regular assessment is carried out in order to identify progress and next steps.
- Children have access to a range of materials to support their understanding such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word mats etc.
- Children are given opportunities to respond to both written and verbal feedback.
- Regular monitoring across phases, and with other schools
This is what you might typically see:
- Happy and engaged learners
- Children demonstrating resilience
- Children encouraged to be creative and take risks
- Collaborative or independent work
- English skills being applied across other areas of the curriculum
- Children discussing, reflecting and sharing their learning
- A range of different activities, including use of technology
This is how we know how well our pupils are doing:
- Different forms of feedback
- Ongoing assessment for learning
- Regular data tracking
- Targeted use of interventions
This is the impact of teaching:
- Confident children who want to share their learning in English
- Children are able to use and explain the meaning of vocabulary
- Children who are prepared to take risks
- Children who enjoy English lessons and English across the curriculum
- Children who are enjoying learning in reading sessions
English Writing Documents
English Reading Documents