Writing
Intent
At Carr Infant School, we want children to become confident, creative and successful writers. Writing is a key and necessary skill for children during their time in education and beyond. We aim to teach writing through a progression of skills enabling children to develop as they move through the school.
Implementation
Spelling Lessons
In EYFS and Year 1, phonics lessons take place daily. These include daily recaps of taught GPCs (grapheme phoneme correspondences) and CEWS (common exception words), following the Little Wandle phonics program of study. Children who are struggling to retain their phonics learning are identified quickly and daily, focused interventions take place. In Year 2, spelling lessons take place daily. These include daily recaps of GPCs and CEWs and progressive teaching of the spelling requirements in the National Curriculum. Children in Y1 and Y2 practice 5 spellings at home each week which they are tested on during the following in school.
Handwriting
Handwriting is taught through an initial modeling lesson and follow-on daily practice sessions. At Carr Infant School, children are taught to form letters using print formation working towards beginning to join at the end of Year 2, when they are ready. See our Handwriting Policy for further details.
Writing
We have a writing curriculum that demonstrates clear progression of skills. From Nursery through to the end of Year 2, the children develop their writing skills through a wide range of purposeful and exciting activities and experiences. There are two aspects of writing, ‘transcription’ (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing). We ensure progression through sequenced and repeated teaching of the skills needed to achieve the writing objectives as outlined in the National Curriculum and EYFS curriculum.
Writing in the Foundation Stage
Our Foundation Stage classes use Helicopter Stories and Jump into a Story programmes to explore exciting, high-quality texts as a model for producing independent writing. This approach ensures children have developed the skills needed to be able to write a simple sentence with confidence by the time they reach the end of their Reception year. In both the Nursery and Reception classes, children are given opportunities in the Areas of Provision to develop their writing skills independently, from mark making through to writing labels and captions and on to sentence writing.
Writing Lessons in Key Stage 1
At Carr Infant School, we are adopting ‘The Write Stuff’ by Jane Considine for the teaching of writing in Key Stage 1. ‘The Write Stuff’ follows a method called Sentence Stacking where there is an emphasis on vocabulary, sentence structure and developing ‘chunks of sense’. Year one began to implement this scheme in Spring 2022. Year 2 will start to use the scheme Summer 2, 2022. Until then they will have continued to use the Writing at Carr model for teaching to provide consistency leading up to the Year 2 SATs.
An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken into 3 learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:
Children are challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’ which requires them to independently draw upon previously learned skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.
‘The Write Stuff’ uses three essential components to support children in becoming great writers. The three zones of writing are :
Thinking side & writing side.
Children develop their writing by building vocabulary and phrases using a technique called ‘chotting‘ with a partner (chatting and jotting). This allows children to work on their writing ideas and we emphasise the importance of thinking about their writing ideas and vocabulary. Books are divided into two sides: the Thinking side where the ideas and chotting are recorded and the Writing side where children construct their sentences.
Celebrating the craft and construction of sentences
A class sentence stack is created to celebrate children’s sentences. This helps children to clearly see how a piece of writing is crafted and built before independently writing.
Independent writing – The published pieces
At the end of the unit of learning, children apply the skills they have learned to their own piece of independent writing. They will use The Write Stuff writing rainbow to create their own unique piece of writing, independently using and applying the skills they have learned in the preceding writing unit.
Impact
By the time children leave Carr Infant School they will:
Phonics and Reading
Intent:
We want our children to develop a lifelong love of language and literature. We know that future success is linked directly to a broad vocabulary, a love of reading and the ability to communicate through text. Therefore our primary aims are, through skilled teaching and knowledge of children’s literature, to:
Implementation
To get every child reading:
We will support all children to learn to read through clear leadership; consistent teaching and learning approaches; regular monitoring and assessment and communication with home. Reading teachers, with support from the Reading Lead, English Team and Senior Leadership Team, draw upon careful observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are challenged and to identify children who may need additional support. Timely intervention is planned for those children working below expected levels as soon as their needs are identified. All children read aloud during phonics or whole class reading. In addition, some pupils may read at least once more per week with a teacher, teaching assistant or reading volunteer; the focus being on the lowest 20%.
At Carr Infant and Nursery school, the systematic teaching of phonics has high priority in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. Progress in reading is dependent upon the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Children read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge, supporting all children to become confident, fluent readers We use a systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) developed by Twinkl called Twinkl Phonics. It is expected that Nursery will introduce Level 1 phonics through small focussed group and activities. This includes learning to make different sounds and developing listening skills. When appropriate, our skilled practitioners will then introduce initial sounds. With Twinkl Phonics pupils usually complete the programme by the beginning of Year 2; some may even finish towards the end of Year. Decodable reading books are organised in the given sequence of our chosen SSP programme and Pupils are not asked to read books that require them to guess words or deduce meaning from pictures, grammar or context clues, or taught words using whole word recognition. Reading books are sent home on a regular basis, all children are encouraged to read at home every evening; the children will take home one reading book that is accurately matched to their reading ability and one book which is intended to be shared as a family. They are given opportunities to write in a diary to record their reading habits; these are celebrated in class. Children who do not receive support at home receive these opportunities in school. In Reception initially the children read individually with a grown up in school at least once per week. By the end of Reception its is expected that the children will have group read during the week. In Key Stage One, in addition to three group reads per week, children’s comprehension skills are developed through whole class reading sessions. The ongoing assessment of children’s reading progress is sufficiently frequent and detailed to identify any pupil who is falling behind. If they do, targeted support is given immediately in line with the Twinkl Codebreakers Interventions. Beyond phonic lessons, Reading skills are taught in all subject areas so that our children realise that reading is important across the curriculum
Promoting a love of reading:
Teachers encourage reading for enjoyment by supporting whole school reading approaches, reading to children at least once a day and encouraging reading at home, developing teacher knowledge of children’s literature. Children are given the opportunity to personally respond to texts, debating and developing links to other texts, authors and prior knowledge. Children read at numerous points throughout the day, the more they read and have opportunity to talk about what they read, the more people, worlds and words they will encounter. In EYFS through our “We Love Stories” sessions, children have the opportunity to dig deep into high quality texts, using the Tales Toolkit to explore characters and settings, problems and solutions. Offering opportunities to communicate their understanding and ideas and using this knowledge to be creative and confident in telling and performing their own stories.
To develop pupils’ understanding and use of spoken language:
Pupils’ vocabulary, grammar, understanding of the world, and their ability to communicate effectively are improved through the quality and variety of language they are exposed to through; unpicking key vocabulary from an ‘above pay grade’ text, a heavy emphasis on revisiting unfamiliar vocabulary daily and through specific vocabulary centred sessions in our weekly reading structure linked to the national curriculum reading domains. In EYFS, vocabulary and syntax is modelled throughout the day (through an in the moment approach) by using words and phrases relevant to their learning, deliberately, systematically and repeatedly. Through our “We Love Stories” sessions, we discover and discuss the use and meaning of tier two vocabulary, finding ways to apply these words to our own experiences.
Impact
The impact of the reading emphasis and teaching at Carr Infant and Nursery school will be…