Our Intent
Our intent at Lacock is to ensure high-quality English teaching for all pupils, using a broad and balanced curriculum, which demonstrates clear progression of skills and knowledge.
This will ensure that all pupils:
Implementation
Spoken Language
At Lacock we believe that speaking and listening skills are the foundation of a child’s success and should underpin the development of their reading and writing. We firmly believe that good oracy enhances the children’s creative writing and we always encourage the children to talk through their ideas in full and extended sentences. Drama is often used to create a meaningful context for the teaching of speaking and listening. Reception and Year 1 have an ever-changing role-play area and from Year 2 upwards children are encouraged to act in role and consider different scenarios to support topic work. An important opportunity to develop speaking and listening, is within our school productions. In Willow class children perform within their first nativity productions and in Oak Class children perform in an end of year production, past shows include ‘Pirates of the Curry Bean, Robin and and The Rocky Monster Show’.
Reading
At Lacock school, all pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live. Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary, because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Teachers model this by reading alongside the children, as well as using a high quality class book, which they read together. We have a wonderful well-equipped school library, located in the centre of the building, which pupils and teachers access on a daily basis. Reading is taught through whole class reading sessions, small group work, paired reading and 1-1. Children are initially introduced to phonic based reading books, but as their confidence at segmenting and blending increases, they are moved on to a range of levelled reading scheme books.
Writing
Children start making marks on paper at an early age and from these early mark makers we aim to develop confident and fluent writers. Across the school children are encouraged to write for different purposes and audiences and we constantly provide opportunities for them to develop their vocabulary and sentence structure skills. Every writing unit of roughly 2-3 weeks, is linked to our topic, class book or a real life experience, as we believe real reasons for writing are more likely to produce high quality work. Each class has a working wall, used to show the journey within a unit and to provide children with reminders of and support for, the learning that is taking place. Children are also encouraged to take responsibility for the quality of their work and to be ‘First Markers’, using a red pen to identify any changes they make.
Impact
Our intent at Lacock is to ensure high-quality English teaching for all pupils, using a broad and balanced curriculum, which demonstrates clear progression of skills and knowledge.
This will ensure that all pupils:
- demonstrate high expectations for the quality and quantity of their work,
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- use reading as a means of gathering information across the whole of the curriculum
- are able to use a wide vocabulary both verbally and in their writing
- can adapt their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- can use phonics and an understanding of morphology, to spell accurately
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- develop a fluent and legible, cursive handwriting style, of which they feel proud
- plan, draft, revise and edit their own writing – viewing mistakes as an important part of the process
- develop stamina for reading and writing
Implementation
Spoken Language
At Lacock we believe that speaking and listening skills are the foundation of a child’s success and should underpin the development of their reading and writing. We firmly believe that good oracy enhances the children’s creative writing and we always encourage the children to talk through their ideas in full and extended sentences. Drama is often used to create a meaningful context for the teaching of speaking and listening. Reception and Year 1 have an ever-changing role-play area and from Year 2 upwards children are encouraged to act in role and consider different scenarios to support topic work. An important opportunity to develop speaking and listening, is within our school productions. In Willow class children perform within their first nativity productions and in Oak Class children perform in an end of year production, past shows include ‘Pirates of the Curry Bean, Robin and and The Rocky Monster Show’.
Reading
At Lacock school, all pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live. Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary, because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Teachers model this by reading alongside the children, as well as using a high quality class book, which they read together. We have a wonderful well-equipped school library, located in the centre of the building, which pupils and teachers access on a daily basis. Reading is taught through whole class reading sessions, small group work, paired reading and 1-1. Children are initially introduced to phonic based reading books, but as their confidence at segmenting and blending increases, they are moved on to a range of levelled reading scheme books.
Writing
Children start making marks on paper at an early age and from these early mark makers we aim to develop confident and fluent writers. Across the school children are encouraged to write for different purposes and audiences and we constantly provide opportunities for them to develop their vocabulary and sentence structure skills. Every writing unit of roughly 2-3 weeks, is linked to our topic, class book or a real life experience, as we believe real reasons for writing are more likely to produce high quality work. Each class has a working wall, used to show the journey within a unit and to provide children with reminders of and support for, the learning that is taking place. Children are also encouraged to take responsibility for the quality of their work and to be ‘First Markers’, using a red pen to identify any changes they make.
Impact
- Pupils of all abilities are able to succeed.
- Pupils will be able to develop and build upon their writing skills year on year.
- Pupils will have a wide vocabulary that they use within their writing
- Pupils will have a good knowledge of how to adapt their writing based on context and audience
- Pupils will be able to apply spelling rules and patterns
- The % of pupils working at ARE will be at least in line with national averages.
- The % of pupils working at GD will be at least in line with national averages
- There will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils