Woodcote Primary SchoolEnglish
Subject Leaders - Mr Culpin and Miss Sharma
Intent of English:
Our intent at Woodcote Primary School is to give every pupil a positive attitude towards reading, writing, speaking and listening. We want all pupils to develop the skills and knowledge they require to be able to communicate confidently with increasingly ambitious vocabulary, as lifelong learners and as members in the wider society. We are driven at Woodcote to ensure children know how to be successful at writing for a range of purposes, for a range of audiences, with increasing awareness for grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Our intent is that their work is purposeful, immersive and exciting. Furthermore, our intent is that children feel enormous pride in their work through demonstrating this through a fluent cursive handwriting style when they leave Woodcote. In reading, we strive for children to continually build and grow on what they know already in order for them to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually and socially. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading is an essential part of life and we are determined to give each child the toolkit to engage with words so they can gather information to continually progress their learning in the wider curriculum and for their later lives.
Find the National Curriculum of English here:
Find our reading progression statements for year 1 - year 6 here:
Find our writing progression statements for year 1 - year 6 here:
Phonics
We follow the Sounds-Write phonics programme which we implemented in 2021. When choosing a programme, we wanted to ensure the following:
*it has a consistent teaching and learning approach across EYFS and KS1, using the same language and using how children learn to underpin the SPP (cognitive science approach)
*it has decodable books to run alongside the programme
*slow and steady progress through the sounds, leading to the children deeply learning their sounds, mirroring our maths curriculum
*clear for parents and carers to follow so that they can support early reading at home
*teaches the sounds in an order which we know works best for most children
*provides extensive training to develop our staff’s understanding
*allows children to learn as a whole class but also flexibility to support all children, who might learn at different rates or need different support
*fits well with our school culture of learning
*staff in KS1, especially the KS1 lead believed in and felt passionately was the right one for us
Teaching staff trained for the programme during Spring and Summer Terms in the academic year of 2021-2022. Support staff within EYFS and KS1 completed the training in the academic year of 2022-2023 to ensure the programme can be delivered by trained staff, even if we have staff absences.
Find out about how phonics and early reading is taught here:
Reading in Key Stage 2
Reading is key across the curriculum and in KS2 we teach reading skills progressively, regularly and explicitly.
By breaking down the cognitive processes behind reading, we can show children what a good reader does and give them the strategies they need to create meaning, before they practise and apply them using a range of texts, questions and activities. Find out all about how we teach reading here:
Writing
We use The Write Stuff system to teach writing. The system outlines a clear, systemic and consistent approach to the teaching of writing, using a step-by-step framework to convert struggling writers into successful writers. The system was introduced to Year 6 just before Christmas and has now been implemented across the whole school (since January 2022). The Rising Stars scheme supports our spelling teaching in years 3 to 6. Find out everything about how we teach writing here:
