Irlam Primary School

In our English lessons we ensure all children are included and valued. We aim to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding through high quality, engaging teaching.

At Irlam Primary School, we have adopted ‘The Write Stuff’ approach to our teaching and learning of English to ensure clarity to the mechanics of writing. "The Write Stuff" follows a method called "Sentence Stacking" which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing. This is a reading- led approach, which is centred around a high-quality story that captures the children's interest from the outset.

Units are carefully selected to ensure a balanced and progressive English curriculum. This is then added to with additional resources from elsewhere whilst ensuring that planning is challenging, balanced and well-pitched for the children in our school. Any planning is adapted as necessary to suit the needs and interests of the pupils being taught. The teaching of grammar and punctuation takes place weekly in a standalone lesson. Teachers plan lessons using objectives from The National Curriculum to ensure full coverage of grammar and punctuation objectives. Grammar and punctuation is revised and revisited daily through The Write Stuff approach.

Vocabulary is taught through class discussions, book talk, the demonstration of writing and regular whole class reading. At Irlam Primary School, we also teach stand-alone vocabulary lessons, from Nursery to Year 6, focusing on a list of 32 words that the children should understand by the end of the year. In EYFS, children are immersed in a language rich environment, with stories at the core of their learning. Even before they can write, the children are securing their understanding of words and their meanings. Vocabulary is a key focus of ‘The Write Stuff’ approach and is embedded into each lesson through ‘chotting’. The 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 vocabulary.

The use of Levelled Book Bands throughout the school incorporates many different reading schemes including books published for general reading. This is supplemented by an online reading scheme. This provides a greater level of choice and exposure to a range of books, whilst the use of book-banding ensures continuity and progression in both decoding skills and comprehension. Children read to adults regularly in school and content is discussed with them to deepen their understanding. Reading at home is an expectation and reading journals are sent home with every child in addition to their reading book.

Guided reading takes place in every classroom from year 1 to year 6. This follows a whole- class approach and a set structure, which helps to improve children’s inference, deductive and literal skills. Children will also develop their fluency and vocabulary using challenging texts. During the autumn term in year 1, children use ‘Reading Planet’ for their whole class guided reading sessions, before following the structure in line with the whole school approach.

At Irlam Primary School, we use the Twinkl Phonics scheme to support the teaching of Phonics. Twinkl Phonics is a fully comprehensive, synthetic Phonics-teaching programme. Synthetic Phonics builds continuously on prior learning to ensure maximum progression for our children. By following one scheme as a whole school, we can establish a progressive, consistent Phonics curriculum where children will progress and succeed. In school, Phonics is taught discreetly each day from nursery to year 2. In KS2, Phonics is taught regularly where needed. As children progress through the Phonic levels, they are allocated a decodable book in line with their Phonemic awareness. This helps to consolidate their learning and ensures they are continually practising their Phonics sounds.

Our English Curriculum makes overt links between phonic development in terms of spelling and the early stages of reading. Children who can spell feel confident and are able to write with enjoyment. We want our pupils to be equipped with the knowledge and range of strategies for learning spelling and to be able to apply their strategies when spelling words in their independent writing. Alongside phonics, Year 1 follow the Twinkl Spelling Scheme. This helps to embed the phonic sounds children have learnt, as well as ensuring they can spot patterns in words. Year 2 to Year 6 follow the ‘Go Grapheme Grafters’ book written by Jane Considine. This includes daily and weekly spelling activities that are built on the fundamentals of teaching spelling with strong phonic foundations alongside proven methods to increase pupil retention. This builds on prior learning and becomes progressively more advanced.