Writing at Longwick

Intent

At Longwick C of E Combined School, our aim is to inspire a love of writing and to open windows to the world, through exposure to a range of engaging, diverse and stimulating texts. We want all our children to grow into confident, keen writers, who can write fluently to communicate their ideas and emotions. We recognise the importance of writing to express creativity and to celebrate self-expression, and we aim for all children to be confident to write across a range of contexts and be able to adapt their language and style to suit these. Our team promotes high expectations of all children, and we work hard to promote a passion for challenge, a ‘can-do’ attitude, and a sense of pride amongst our pupils.  

Implementation

As a whole school approach, we have adopted a teaching pedagogy called ‘The Write Stuff’ by Jane Considine, to bring clarity and consistency to the mechanics of writing and to enable our children to write effectively and coherently. This is a fun, creative and rigorous approach to develop children’s writing. This pedagogy teaches children to apply basic skills, vocabulary and grammar knowledge to write effective sentences, which are full of impact and keep the reader interested. Through this approach, the children explore high level, rich vocabulary and are taught grammar in context through different writing lenses of the Writing Rainbow.

The Writing Rainbow consists of 3 areas to support children's writing:

The Fantastics – The ideas for writing 
The Grammaristics – The tools for writing 
The Boomtastics – The writing techniques

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​The Write Stuff is based on two guiding principles; 'Experience Days' and 'Sentence Stacking Lessons'. 

An example of an 'Experience Day' - the children pretended that they were outside on a freezing cold day, before snuggling up in their cosy blankets and sipping on hot chocolate once back in their warm and snug classroom.

As part of the carefully planned teaching sequence, our teachers plan experience days, sentence stacking lessons and independent writing sequences. Experience days immerse children in experiences linked to their writing and drench them in vocabulary linked to the lenses in ‘The Writing Rainbow’. From the experience days, children then take part in the sentence stacking lessons. Sentence stacking lessons focus on writing at least three sentences with focuses on lenses of the rainbow. 

Sentence Stacking refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing. 

An example of 'sentence stacking' in Year 5.

An individual lesson is based on one plot point from the text, broken into  learning chunks: 

• 1.  Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence. 
• 2. Model section – the teacher models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques. 
• 3. Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the teacher’s model. 

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This part of the unit is heavily scaffolded with lots of teacher input and modelling of vocabulary use, sentence construction and use of grammar. 

During the Initiate section, children ‘chot’ (chat and jot) down their ideas from stimulating resources, such as pictures, music and drama. The children are encouraged to use ‘kind calling out’ where they call out examples of vocabulary, adverbs, onomatopoeia etc. 

During the Model section, the teacher prepares children for writing by modelling the ideas, grammar and techniques of writing taken from the writing rainbow. 

In the Enable section pupils write their own sentences, taking the opportunity to deepen the moment. ‘Deepen the Moment’ is where children are challenged to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk. 

Following the sentence stacking sequence, children are given the opportunity to show what they have learnt by planning and writing their own independent piece of writing. 

Impact 

As The Write Stuff approach to writing becomes embedded in our school, our children will be able to;

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• write for a range of purposes, including diary entries, persuasive letters, stories, poems and recounts.
• use their vast knowledge of vocabulary to excite, inform or entertain the reader. 
• understand a range of punctuation and the effect it can have on the reader in both writing and reading. 

• understand and be able to use a range of grammatical devices. 
• understand the various sentence types that can be used to support different genres. 
• spell accurately using their phonetic knowledge and apply spelling rules. 
• speak clearly, fluently and coherently, to be able to listen attentively with understanding, pleasure and empathy and contribute to group discussions 
• understand how to apply sentence scaffolds to their independent writing as they develop their expertise.
• have a clear view of what high quality writing looks like and their learning is structured clearly and misconceptions dealt with.
• know how to improve their writing and make it more focussed and actionable feedback is provided to guide their learning.
• have a concept of how to build, plan and complete a piece of writing due to narrative maps and non-fiction shapes.

Reading at Longwick

Intent

At Longwick C of E Combined School, reading is at the heart of our curriculum. Reading opens a world of possibility and intrigue and is a fundamental life skill which enables children to communicate effectively in all areas and equips them for the challenges they will face in the wider world. It is our intent that the reading curriculum provides our children with the roots to grow and the wings to fly:

The roots to grow:

• Our children are immersed in an engaging, literacy-rich learning environment, emphasising the importance of speaking, reading and writing skills.
• Our children develop the habit of reading widely and often, as a source of communication, information, research, interest, and pleasure. 
• Our children are encouraged to appreciate, value and respect the diversity in our society and the environment in which they live, and appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.
• Across the curriculum, children enjoy a range of texts linked to their topics, to support the acquisition of subject specific vocabulary. 
• Our school builds a strong home-school partnership so that parents and carers have the confidence to support their children with reading at home.
• Comprehension develops through children’s experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction.
• Our children are regularly assessed, and where gaps in learning are identified, high-quality interventions and additional support is put into place.

The wings to fly:

• All of our children will make progress in their reading, regardless of their background, needs or abilities. 
• Children are instilled with a life-long love of reading both at home and school.
• Our children acquire a wide vocabulary and an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.
• All of our children leave Primary School as fluent and confident readers, equipped to reach their full potential in Secondary School and beyond.

Implementation

Our school is an engaging literary-rich learning environment.

• Our EYFS provision is language-rich; our staff are adept at holding meaningful and engaging conversations with the children; skilfully giving time for children to develop their speaking and listening skills.
• Our EYFS area is a thoughtfully designed learning space which promotes and encourages the enhancement of children’s communication and language development as a whole.
• We have a varied and well-stocked Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 libraries.
• Each classroom has an inviting and engaging reading area
• Exposing our pupils to vocabulary underpins our curriculum; Key vocabulary from different subjects is displayed and updated regularly on our working walls in every classroom. This is referred to as part of our lessons, e.g. learning Rocket Words in Science.
• Our Year 5 and 6 pupils visit the Early Years and Key Stage 1 to share books with our younger pupils (Wandle Wizards)

• Our staff deliver a reading curriculum which consists of a carefully planned sequence of learning, enabling all children to confidently develop their reading and comprehension skills.
• All staff use formative and summative assessments effectively to ensure children 'keep up' and make rapid progress, leading towards becoming mature independent readers by the time they leave us in Year 6. 

We are passionate about instilling a life-long love of reading amongst our pupils:

• We have daily poetry, rhyme and singing sessions in Reception and Year One;
• There is protected, daily reading time across the school where children have the opportunity to hear their teacher read to them;
• The English Lead runs a Book Club open to all, each term;
• We have a ‘Longwick Reading Squad’ – a dedicated team of staff and volunteers committed to teaching and listening to children read;
• We hold school events such as World Book Day, Book Swaps, Sponsored Reads, Author visits, etc;
• There is a regular focus on reading during our Writer of the Week Assembly – we celebrate authors, share work, vote for book of the week, share book reviews, etc.

We teach and celebrate diversity and expose our pupils to our rich and varied literary heritage.

• Our choice of texts is accessible yet ambitious, contain culturally rich content; reflecting a diverse range of voices and characters, reflecting the background of people in the school and society more widely.

Teaching of Phonics and Reading Across the School

Early Years and Key Stage  Phonics

In Reception and KS1, daily phonics lessons are timetabled and are taught using the Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds Programme.

We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, these start as 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, building to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

In Reception, phonics teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:

Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy. Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Any child who needs additional practice is identified by the English Lead and/or class teacher. They then receive daily keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources, and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.

Reading Across Early Years and Key Stage 1

Reading Practice Sessions

Our children have timetabled reading practice sessions three times a week.

These are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children and use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised assessments and book matching grids from the Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds Programme.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills: decoding, prosody and comprehension.

In Reception these sessions start in Week 4.

Reading is monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.

The English Lead has regular opportunities to carry out Learning Walks to observe teaching, with coaching sessions planned where gaps in teaching have been identified.

The English Lead works closely with the class teachers and uses both formative and summative data to identify children who need additional support and have gaps in their learning.

Home reading

Children in EYFS and Key Stage 1 take home two books. One is their decodable reading practice book from their reading practice sessions, to ensure that their success is shared with their families. This is changed weekly. The other is a Reading for Pleasure book which the children choose from our library, for parents to share and read to their children.  This can be changed as frequently as they like.

We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Reading Across Year 3 and 4

The children have three whole class Guided Reading sessions where they are taught the key skills and knowledge following the national curriculum for Reading, with a strong focus on retrieval and inference content domains in the first instance. These lessons are often linked to a cross-curricular text so that the children can make links and use key vocabulary in their writing and deepen their learning in other subjects. For example, the class teacher may use a text linked to Geography, History or Science to pre-teach or revisit previous knowledge to further deepen knowledge and understanding for the children. Longwick Learners have told us that they enjoy this approach because 'I get to learn more about interesting things like the ancient Egyptians,' and 'It makes learning more interesting,' 

Reading Across Year 5 and 6 

When the children are confident and fluent readers, they progress to 5 guided reading sessions a week by the time they are in Year 6. During this time, children have regular exposure to all the content domains for the Reading curriculum as mature, independent readers.

Teachers carefully consider and adapt reading texts and resources to both Deepen learning and Strengthen it for emerging readers. For example, staff may pre-teach a shorter part of the text, and adapt questions to focus on different skills children may need.

Rapid Catch-Up for Children Working Below Age Related Expectation in Reading in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2

The English Lead uses summative assessment to identify any child in Year 2 or above who are not reading at age-related expectation.

These children are then assessed using the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-Up Assessment, so that their pathway and specific teaching can be created.

These children then receive Rapid-Catch Up sessions on a weekly basis, delivered by trained adults. Receiving this targeted support enables our children to access the curriculum and enjoy reading as soon as possible. Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up is a complete catch-up programme that mirrors the main phonics programme but has a faster pace. It has been created to help children catch up quickly.

We use these assessments to work out exactly what gaps these children have and put in place a robust programme to ensure they learn to read quickly. The assessments enable us to match children to the appropriate reading book.

Children on this programme are re-assessed when they complete Phase 2, 3 and 4.

Children who are following the Phase 5 part of the programme are re-assessed every four weeks.

At the end of the programme, children are assessed to check they are ready to leave Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up. We use the Rapid Catch-up fluency assessment to find out about children’s reading accuracy and rate of reading to determine if they have gained enough fluency and accuracy to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme. In order to understand the meaning of what they are reading, children need to be reading at approximately 90 words per minute.

Parental Engagement

The English Lead and Reception Class teacher plan Parent Workshops and information sessions to keep parents and carers up to date with how phonics and reading are taught across the school, and they can support their child at home.

We have a high expectation that children are listened to read on a regular basis; staff check reading records daily.

The English Lead ensures that the English page is current and up to date, with the latest phonics and reading information, including links and resources for parents and carers to access at home.

Early Reading Impact

Year One Phonics Screening Check

Children in Year 1 will take the Year One Phonics Screening Check. Any child who does not meet the threshold will retake the check in Year 2.

End Points

By the end of Reception most children will attain the Development Matters outcomes for 5 year olds

Reading:

• Children read and understand simple sentences.

• They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately.

• They also read some common irregular words.

• They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

By the end of Key Stage 1, most pupils will attain the expected standard from the national curriculum outcomes for 7 year olds will be able to:

• read accurately most words of two or more syllables

• read most words containing common suffixes

• read most common exception words

In age-appropriate Key Stage 1 books, the pupil can:

• read most words accurately without overt sounding and blending, and sufficiently fluently to allow

them to focus on their understanding rather than on decoding individual words

• sound out most unfamiliar words accurately, without undue hesitation

In a book that they can already read fluently, the pupil can:

• check it makes sense to them, correcting any inaccurate reading

• answer questions and make some inferences

• explain what has happened so far in what they have read

Reading Impact

By the end of Key Stage 2 most children will attain the age-related expectations for 11-year olds and will be able to:

Develop positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read by:

• listening to and discussing a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books

or textbooks

• reading books that are structured in different ways and reading for a range of purposes

• using dictionaries to check the meaning of words that they have read

• increasing their familiarity with a wide range of books, including fairy stories, myths and legends,

and retelling some of these orally

• identifying themes and conventions in a wide range of books English – key stages 1 and 2

• preparing poems and play scripts to read aloud and to perform, showing understanding through

intonation, tone, volume and action

• discussing words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination

• recognising some different forms of poetry [for example, free verse, narrative poetry

Understand what they read, in books they can read independently, by:

• checking that the text makes sense to them, discussing their understanding and explaining the meaning of words in context

• asking questions to improve their understanding of a text

• drawing inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justifying inferences with evidence

• predicting what might happen from details stated and implied

• identifying main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph and summarising these

• identifying how language, structure, and presentation contribute to meaning

• retrieve and record information from non-fiction

• participate in discussion about both books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say.