English

Intent 

Leigh Academy Oaks' English curriculum aims to develop internationally minded individuals with a deep love of language and global understanding. We prepare children for success in their next phase of learning, secondary education and the workplace by establishing essential literacy skills. Our core intentions are to instil a passion for speaking, listening, reading and writing in every pupil. This is planned and sequenced through exposure to a range of high-quality, diverse texts and genres, opportunities for purposeful writing, and presenting to develop key speaking and listening skills in our pupils. 

We ensure phonics knowledge is taught systematically using ‘Phonics International’ from Nursery, providing a firm foundation for decoding, which then progresses seamlessly into dedicated fluency practice and high-level focused comprehension strategies in Key Stage 2. Reading Rainbow, as part of our approach, ensures that pupils are talking about books from when they start in our Nursery. This foundational work helps us develop strong inference and critical thinking skills required to develop strong comprehension and understand the authors' messages and key themes.

High-quality, challenging core texts are central to our IB PYP inquiry approach to learning. We ensure that reading is directly connected to everyday learning, selecting texts that offer rich language and vocabulary, diversity, and complex grammatical structures. This exposure supports the explicit teaching of spelling and grammar across the written curriculum.

The PYP inquiries naturally lend themselves to exploring real-life issues and circumstances, which we use as powerful prompts for writing. Through the transdisciplinary nature of our curriculum, children are encouraged to write for a wide range of purposes and audiences in both fiction and non-fiction styles. This integrated approach allows us to effectively foster the ability to write with purpose, directly linking written work to the current inquiries and core texts.

Ensuring access to and participation in a language-rich environment is key to our pupils' success in our school's geographical area of deprivation.

Each of our chosen texts, whether fiction or non-fiction, aims to raise the ambitions of our young people. Pupils clearly see the importance of believing in themselves, striving to make the world a better place and can be inspired by the heroes of each text: advocates, explorers, inventors and brave risk takers, intending to pave the way for our young people’s futures.

Implementation 

Phonics Implementation

Reading is a fundamental tool that, once learned, opens a world of knowledge to our pupils, empowering them to take agency in their learning and become autonomous learners. Word reading (phonics decoding) and understanding (comprehension) are essential to this. 

To prepare learners to read across the curriculum with fluency, enjoyment, accuracy and understanding, they require exposure to a range of developmentally appropriate and inclusive learning experiences.

Our systematic teaching of phonics has high priority throughout EYFS and KS1. Phonics is taught daily in discrete lessons as well as through incidental learning in these year groups. 

At LAO, phonics teaching enables children to become fluent readers and confident spellers. Phonics teaching also continues beyond KS1 for those pupils who need more time. 

We follow a systematic synthetic phonics programme; Phonics International (a DfE validated programme). ‘Phonics International (PI) is a highly-organised, systematic and yet flexible online synthetic phonics programme (program)‘.

With synthetic phonics, children are taught to read and spell at the same time. They are taught to convert letters into sounds and then blend the sounds to form words. The Phonics International programme, devised by Debbie Hepplewhite, is made up of 12 units (see Progression document), and has high expectations from the beginning of Reception. 

In Reception, the children will learn to read, write, blend and segment with the following GPCs:

• Unit 1: s a t i p n c k ck e h r

• Unit 2a: m d g o u l ll f ff ss b j y

• Unit 2b: ai ay w oa ow ie igh le o a e i o u y

• Unit 3: ee or z zz wh ea ea se ze aw

• Unit 4: ng nk v ve oo oo y ey x ch sh th ph

In Year One, the children will build on their prior knowledge and learn to read, write, blend and segment with the following GPCs:

• Unit 5: qu ou ow oi ue er ar ce ge se

• Unit 6: ce ge oe i-e e-e o-e a-e u-e air are ear ere eer ear ere ier ir ur ear (w)or our si s ge ture x f ph or au aw ie ch ou ew ti ci ssi kn wr mb st

At Leigh Academy Oaks, phonics learning does not end after the phonics screening check in Year One. In Year Two, our learners build on their prior knowledge and learn to read, write, blend and segment with the following GPCs:

• Unit 7: -le -il -al aw au al oar oor our ch tch ge dge x kn wr mb sc gu bu ch rh

• Unit 8: sh ch ti ci ssi /zh/ si s z g ge ou ous ph gh ch wa qua war gn st

Phonics is taught in whole-class sessions to ensure that the children are being taught the age-appropriate code. We use a two-pronged approach of systematic and incidental teaching. Where intervention is required for those needing additional support or those needing challenge, the same programme is used so that the phonics practice does not become diluted.

It is a prerequisite that our Reception learners must be able to auditorily blend and segment given sets of words that are made up of Units 1-4 phonemes. They must also be able to associate learned phonemes with graphemes before being given phonetically decodable books to read. Thus, early in the Reception year, our pupils take home a book to share with an adult with the intention of developing comprehension skills and a love of reading. 

Once the child has mastered auditorily blending and segmenting, they will be able to take home phonetically decodable books and another book to share and develop their enjoyment and comprehension. As our students in Year One and Two progress and begin to recognise words through morphology and sight, they will start to take home books that, through exposure, will build upon their comprehension, automaticity and fluency.

Reading Implementation 

At Leigh Academy Oaks, we cultivate a love of reading and ensure every child understands its importance. Reading for pleasure is integral to all aspects of school life, establishing a robust reading culture. This focus helps pupils develop learning strategies and enhances their life opportunities. We prioritise exposing students to a wide and diverse selection of texts, as this significantly boosts their educational achievement.

Through explicit teaching of reading, children learn to read with confidence, fluency and understanding. They learn to appreciate the joy and wonder of reading, fiction and nonfiction, which is a lifelong skill.  Adults promote and value books throughout the curriculum and school life, with opportunities to engage in a shared love and celebration of reading. 

Reading comprehension lessons across the school are supported by the Reading Rainbow and the teaching of the reading content domains. The Reading Rainbow allows for rich discussion of core texts through carefully chosen lenses, starting in Nursery. 

Both fluency and comprehension are modelled by an adult to provide learners with an accurate example of how proficient reading sounds and to demonstrate the thinking processes involved in understanding a text.  

The reading content domains found in the National Curriculum Test Framework are taught explicitly with an understanding that reading skills build upon and support each other. This ensures children have a sound understanding of each of the skills and how they relate. Children are exposed to high-quality and diverse texts linked to the transdisciplinary theme and central idea of a class’s Inquiry-based learning.   Opportunities to recall prior knowledge, understand and widen vocabulary, develop fluency and read for meaning are carefully planned and discussed with children.  Once modelled, children are regularly required to produce independent oral and written responses to questions about the texts that they read.  To foster deeper thinking and enhance comprehension, these texts can be both longer pieces and extracts or passages. Inclusive adaptations are employed, with the digital Read Write tool bar providing further support for pupils’ access to learning materials. 

Writing Implementation 

All of our pupils will learn to write clearly, with correctly formed and legible handwriting.  Children are taught to spell and use punctuation accurately and to write in grammatically correct sentences. The aims of the English National Curriculum underpin the planning of all writing sessions at Oaks. These writing sessions are designed to teach the writing skills outlined in the English Programmes of Study.  The inquiry-based PYP is used as a vehicle for writing, providing children with a foundation of knowledge that can be transferred and utilised to write for purpose and audience in mind once foundational writing skills are secured. 

As children enter our Early Years Foundation Stage, there are regular opportunities for mark-making and exploring writing in all areas of the curriculum, both in the indoor and outdoor learning provisions.  Children are explicitly taught letter formation and in addition, there are opportunities to explore letter formation further as part of Phonics International.  This supports applying phonics knowledge to form words. As each child’s phonics knowledge advances, as well as the ability to write high-frequency words, children are taught to write simple phrases and sentences. Our pupils are encouraged to write through child initiated learning time, where they are able to independently select and use a range of writing tools. 

In both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, transcription and composition form the basis for what is taught. Writing takes place in many forms – word and sentence activities, independent, modelled and shared writing. Throughout the week, writing skills are also taught discretely and embedded as part of our inquiry lessons.  Therefore, pupils apply the skills they have been taught in all areas of the curriculum. 

Our writing sequence ensures that children are given time to generate ideas by conducting research or through the use of inspiring stimuli, such as the key texts that form the core of our curriculum. This is before they plan their written content. During drafting phases, children begin to form their ideas as extended pieces of writing, where children demonstrate their growing stamina for writing at length. This process is followed by the revision and editing of their writing, where children check and edit their own writing, making alterations to ensure their pieces are coherent, cohesive, and fit for the intended purpose and target audience. 

Spelling Implementation 

Through synthetic phonics, children are taught the different ways of spelling sounds and then apply their growing knowledge to write words and sentences. Alongside decodable words, the reading and spelling of common exception words are taught. Spelling rules and strategies are introduced in Year One to help spell accurately. From Year One to Year Six, we use the Spelling Shed (Ed Shed) Spelling Scheme to support delivery in weekly spelling lessons. Children also have access to the online platform for school and home use. We encourage children to explore the morphology and etymology of words and make connections between words throughout the curriculum.  

Grammar, punctuation and vocabulary Implementation 

Vocabulary provides the building blocks to language development and, in turn, is connected to both effective reading and writing skills. For our context and our pupils at Oaks, we acknowledge the essential need for rich and varied vocabulary for all our children, and each member of our staff promotes this daily. Across the academy, each classroom environment is vocabulary-rich. We use Chromebooks (and dictionaries) throughout our day to engage the children with new words. We want all our pupils to explore vocabulary. Our aim is that children are able to decipher new words and use them when speaking and writing, both informally and formally. 

Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught discretely as well as embedded within our curriculum. They are also taught incidentally through inquiry writing, where this is required. Our curriculum ensures all learners understand the necessary features and skills to write successfully for a range of intended purposes.  

Handwriting 

Handwriting is taught progressively across both key stages, in line with the National Curriculum expectations for transcription. In the Early Years Foundation Stage, children develop the fine-motor control and pre-writing skills needed for mark-making. They are taught correct letter formation through a range of developmentally appropriate and engaging activities.As pupils develop these skills, they move on to practising letter formation in letter families, forming lower-case and capital letters correctly and securely.  Children are taught an efficient pencil grip and begin to develop consistent letter sizing, spacing, and orientation so that their handwriting becomes increasingly legible and well presented.  When ready, pupils are taught to join letters.

Oracy Implementation 

Speaking and listening is embedded in all aspects of school life, across all areas of the curriculum.  Through our IB Approaches to Learning, pupils develop their communication and social skills and as part of the development of their IB Learner Profile Attributes, pupils also develop the attribute of ‘communicator’. These skills and attributes are mapped across our Programme of Inquiry, from Nursery to Year 6, ensuring pupils recognise these in others and also themselves. 

Pupils engage in regular opportunities for oracy. As part of our Personal Development Programme and our Pupil Employment Scheme, pupils learn to communicate in their ‘working environment’ and develop the skills and knowledge needed to fulfil their roles. 

Safe and supportive learning environments ensure all pupils participate in conversation and debate. Our strategy for verbal feedback (conferencing) allows all pupils to use their voice daily to discuss their learning with others. These skills are invaluable to the children in our school context.

Impact 

By the time children leave Leigh Academy Oaks, they are competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a passion for reading a range of genres and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader. They can also read books to enhance their knowledge and understanding of all subjects on the curriculum, and communicate their research to a wider audience through our carefully planned IB PYP Programme of Inquiry. 

Pupils make excellent progress from their own personal starting points. By the end of Year Six, pupils will be able to write clearly and accurately, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. Our pupils acquire a wide vocabulary and have a strong command of the written word. Most importantly, our learners develop a love of reading and writing, becoming well-equipped for the rest of their education and future lives. 

Through the delivery of our ambitious English curriculum linked with the PYP, pupils learn exceptionally well and make excellent progress, with our data consistently above the national average at the end of KS2.