English ✏
Our Vision
Reading, Writing and Spoken language are at the heart of all that we do at Parkfield and an integral part of every school day. Children are taught to read and write fluently so that they are able to access the wider curriculum and deepen their knowledge and understanding of the world around them during their time at Parkfield and beyond.
Reading
Children in Reception and Key Stage One are taught to read through the RWI (Read, Write, Inc) phonics programme, during which they will read fully decodable books linked to their phonic knowledge. Children will continue to access RWI until their phonics knowledge is secure.
In Key Stage Two, children have daily guided reading lessons that follow a weekly cycle focusing on the key skills of comprehension matching the National Curriculum domains.
We prioritise wider reading opportunities for our pupils and we do all that we can to encourage our Parkfielders to develop a love of reading. Reading will always be a high priority for our children, families and school community. Our team of Reading Ambassadors promote reading across the whole school and demonstrate excellent pupil leadership to inspire others.
Writing
At Parkfield, we believe that children need to be involved in writing for real purposes for a range of audiences in order to view themselves as successful writers. In writing lessons, children develop their stamina and skills to write at length using accurate spelling and punctuation.
In Reception, children are taught to write primarily through the RWI phonics programme with additional creative writing opportunities within provision. Children in Year 1 - 6 are taught using The Write Stuff approach which enriches vocabulary and allows children to expand on the range of their writing to include a variety of genres, purposes and audiences.
Spoken Language
Children at Parkfield are taught to speak clearly and confidently using the Six Ps of fluent reading: pitch, passion, pace, pause, punctuation and power. Children are encouraged to express their opinions with reason and justification and actively take part in debates and discussions. We want all of our Parkfielders to have the neccesary skills to effectively communicate with others at all stages of their lives.
Enrichment
Our English curriculum is enriched with opportunities for every child to visit the theatre, celebrate World Book Day, take part in the annual Parkfield poetry competition, be involved in class assemblies, visit Middleton Library termly and experience author visits.
For further information about the delivery of our ambitious and exciting English curriculum, please see the English Policy and each year group's long term overviews.
Long term overview
The below document details the main writing opportunities children will have in each half term. In addition to those listed below, there will be a number of incidental writing opportunities to enhance the curriculum.
Reading and Phonics
In Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, reading is taught using Read Write Inc (RWI). Children will continue to access RWI until their phonic knowledge is secure. The Write Stuff. During Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, the children will be assessed regularly and streamed into groups based on their phonic ability.
Children will read a book in class and take that book home to read. They will also take a ‘book bag book’ and their Love To Read library book home.
From Year 2 to Year 6 the children will follow the Whole Class Parkfield Guided Reading cycle, which uses the foundations of John Murray’s Guided Reading approach with adaptations bespoke to Parkfield. Within the five day cycle, the children explore a carefully chosen, vocabulary-rich text extract from Monday – Thursday. On Friday, the children answer questions based on an unseen text, which is linked to the text used from Monday – Thursday by genre, style or theme.
The five day cycle comprises of:
Layer 1 (Monday) – an orientation and retrieval session
Layer 2 (Tuesday) – a vocabulary session
Layer 3 (Wednesday) – an inference session
Layer 4 The Warm Application (Thursday) – a guided comprehension task using the skills of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, prediction, summary and comparison.
Layer 5 The Cold Application (Friday) – an independent comprehension task using the skills of retrieval, vocabulary, inference, prediction, summary and comparison. An opportunity for the children to apply the skills built up over the week.
Throughout the week, the question types and skills used are interwoven and despite there being a specific focus skill each day, children will retrieve, predict, summarise, compare and infer in every session.
Each class will be taught by their teacher and the teaching assistant will support in class or take small groups.
Reading intervention
Our priority is for all children to leave Parkfield as fluent readers. We believe quality-first teaching to be the most effective tool to enabling children to become confident readers, however we recognise there are instances when high quality intervention is neccessary to provide bespoke teaching to an individual or small group.
Children in KS2 who do not have a secure phonic knowledge will access daily phonics lessons tailored to their target sounds and phases following the RWI programme. These children will access additional comprehension tasks in writing lessons and throughout the wider curriculum.
Fresh Start Phonics is delivered in Year 5 and 6 and replaces Friday's cold application session for children who require additional phonics.
Targets (Reading and Writing)
Our reading and writing targets are set for each Year group from Year 1 to Year 6. They reflect the skills taught that are expected for each year group and we share them with parents on a termly basis so that you can accurately track your child's progress and support them as necessary.
Other areas
This section is about the speaking and listening cross-curricular opportunities that the children will experience through our rich curriculum that we offer here at Parkfield.
This section details about our SPAG learning. The children will be taught these skills discretely, as well as during English writing lessons, where the skills will link to their writing. When children are ready, they will take spellings home to learn and be 'tested' on a Friday. The test is a learning opportunity at each stage, where misconceptions are addressed immediately and the children are empowered. We then celebrate spellings in a termly 'Spelling Bee'.
This section is about the narrative, fiction and non-fiction writing at Parkfield and the cross-curricular writing opportunities that children have.
This section details the reading spine through the Parkfield curriculum from Reception to Year 6 that we hope fosters a love of reading.
This section details the handwriting expectations across the school.
This section details how we share a range of poems with the children, who then use these as stimuli for their own writing and performances.
English Policy
ENGLISH POLICY NOVEMBER 2022.pdf