English Curriculum

English Curriculum at North Thoresby Primary Academy

Our English curriculum is underpinned by a combination of the Lift Schools specification (writing in Year 1 and 2) and by Pathways to Read and Write. 

Intent-

At North Thoresby Primary Academy we offer a broad English Curriculum that allows children to deepen their understanding and application of reading, grammar and writing skills and prepares them with strong literacy skills for life and a love of reading. We strive to create an environment, which instils a passion for literature, where pupils write creatively, read for enjoyment and use these skills enthusiastically for academic purposes and inquisitive fact finding.

Implementation-

Our English curriculum begins with the children in EYFS receiving rigorous teaching of systematic synthetic phonics which provides the essential, strong base to build children’s literacy education upon. The rest of the English curriculum is delivered through engagement with high quality and inspiring texts from a wide range of genres. We deliver lessons which provide a wealth of opportunities to rehearse and apply reading, spelling, grammar and writing skills in a meaningful way. Consistent teaching strategies assist children to identify and apply their literacy skills in our wider curriculum subjects which ensures a high standard of vocabulary development and grammar is upheld across all subjects. 

Impact-

The success of our English curriculum is reflected throughout our school and embodied in our pupils, who are enthusiastic and excited to discuss the books they are studying and share the written outcomes that they have created. Using the engaging texts within our reading and writing lessons has had a positive impact on learning, with the pupils being eager to write for purpose, cover a range of genres and to master skills that can be applied to wider curriculum writing and built upon as they progress through the school.

All classes study books from a range of genres that link to a wide variety of topics which pupils cover in their wider curriculum learning. Daily opportunities to extend their vocabulary and rehearse reading skills are embedded in our curriculum as reading is an essential tool for life. Writing lessons offer opportunities for children to be creative and imaginative in their written work. We develop pupils’ confidence and grammatical knowledge across a range of genres and for a variety of purposes. We are remarkable at Reading and Writing in Key Stage 1 because… 

Yearly Overview of Reading and Writing 

Working with consultants from The Literacy Company, Read Write Ink and Lift Schools, we have developed a bespoke curriculum to meet the needs of our pupils. The curriculum has been created as a two year cycle to meet the needs of our mixed year provision.

Reading and Writing Skills Progression

Our Reading and Writing Curriculums are designed to ensure there is a clear, planned progression of skills within these core subjects.

Spelling Progression

We follow National Curriculum guidance to provide a clear progression in spelling. It is underpinned by phonic knowledge and builds to learn words that occur with high-frequency in our language to facilitate writing, commonly used words words that are exceptions to spelling rules and GPCs and spelling patterns and rules.

Spellings are taught and set weekly for children in Year 2 and above.  These are also sent home for your child to practise and your support in helping them do this is greatly appreciated.

Handwriting

We have developed a consistent approach to teaching handwriting that begins in EFYS with the learning of letter formations through the fun Read Write Inc. phrases. These phrases continue to be used along with the water, boat, sun graphic that helps children to learn to seat their writing on the line and develop the appropriate sizing of each letter. From Year 3, children are taught to join their writing using the washing-line join and arm join from Read Write Inc. and incorporates set phrases that creates a common language for handwriting in all of our classrooms.