Home Page

English

English at Dalestorth

English is one of the core subjects and is broken down into components.

They are: Writing, Reading, Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling and Handwriting.

More detail is provided below, of all the areas of English.

Teaching Reading and Phonics at Dalestorth

Writing Intent

At Dalestorth Primary and Nursery School, we teach writing by meeting the requirements of the National Curriculum. We aim to deliver a high-quality education which teaches pupils to write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas to others. We want them to write clearly, accurately and clearly, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We aim to deliver quality first teaching that follows a carefully planned sequence of lessons through exposure to high quality texts. We provide the children with opportunities to explore precise and enriched vocabulary to use within the context of the lesson and to connect to wider subject areas. Writing is taught in each year group progressively through a wide variety of genres. We want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. Teaching is designed to take account of our progression documents to ensure age appropriate content. Where appropriate, links are also made to ensure that children’s social, moral, spiritual and cultural development is enhanced through writing.

The sequence of teaching involves:

Selecting and reading high quality texts which enrich children’s knowledge and experiences.
Teaching of challenging vocabulary with cross curricular links.
Grammar and punctuation related to the current writing genre.
Planning, composition, editing and evaluating their writing.
Completing a final piece per unit/genre.

Reading Intent

At Dalestorth Primary and Nursery School, we teach reading by meeting the requirements of the National Curriculum. We aim to deliver a high-quality education which teaches pupils to read accurately and with good comprehension so that they can effectively access the world in which they live. We want them to develop a love of reading, reading with good pace, fluency and expression in a range of contexts. We aim to deliver quality first teaching that follows a carefully planned sequence of lessons through exposure to high quality texts. We provide the children with opportunities to explore precise and enriched vocabulary to use within the context of the lesson and to connect to wider subject areas. Reading is taught in each year group progressively, using a wide variety of quality texts. We want children to become independent readers who choose to read for pleasure. Teaching is designed to take account of our progression documents to ensure age appropriate content. Where appropriate, links are also made to ensure that children’s social, moral, spiritual and cultural development is enhanced through their reading experiences.

The sequence of teaching involves:

Selecting and reading high quality texts which enrich children’s knowledge and experiences.
Teaching challenging vocabulary with cross curricular links.
Developing pace, fluency and expression when reading.
Teaching and developing the skills of understanding and using vocabulary, inferring, clarifying, summarising and sequencing, predicting, retrieving and questioning.

Reading skills progression

Key Stage 1

Key Stage 1 children have an English session every day and an additional 20-30 minutes of work on Letters and Sounds. Both sessions follow the objectives set down in the National Curriculum for English. We follow the LCP Phonics Planning which is based on Letters and Sounds. It is broken down into a series of phases. Children practise handwriting and work on their fine-motor skills through a range of activities. Reading sessions, whole class or group work, take place daily and opportunities are provided for regular 1:1 reading.

Key Stage 2

Children from Years 3 to 6 have two whole class reading lessons each week, as well as a Spelling, Puncutation and Grammar (SPaG) lesson, and three writing lessons and a handwriting session. There are also two short spelling lessons each week, as well as a weekly spelling test.

Letters and Sounds

These sessions start in Foundation Stage and in Key Stage 1 children continue to work through the phases. These sessions take place with children, grouped by their current phonic ability. This sessions are run by both teachers and experienced Teaching Assistants. Details of the sounds and spelling patterns are provided in a link below. Many ‘Tricky’ words are looked at in these session, these are also known as common exception words and cannot be decoded using a knowledge of sounds and corresponding graphemes.

For more information about how we teach phonics - letters and sounds please click the link below.

Phonics

During FS1, children are given regular opportunities to develop their listening skills which forms the basis for their future learning in Phonics. High-quality continuous and enhanced provision enables children to develop and apply their skills through the seven aspects of Phase 1, alongside carefully planned small group time sessions.
In FS2 and Year 1, children have a daily Phonics session which follows a structured sequence from Phase 2 – Phase 5 (see below). This ensures that children make rapid progress in systematically learning and revising phonemes and graphemes and common exception words.
In Year 2, children have a daily Phonics/spelling session, revising previously taught phonics content and teaching spelling rules and strategies as set out in the Spelling Shed scheme of work (Phase 6).
Assessments are carried out regularly to identify those children who may be falling behind. 1:1 and small group interventions are then put in place to enable these children to catch up. Phonics Tracker is used to monitor all children’s progress in FS2 & KS1 and with children identified as needing ‘catch-up’ Phonics support in KS2.
Children are given a reading book to read independently once they are able to recognise the first two sets of Phase 2 sounds and read some tricky words. The books given are initially phonic based and are matched closely to a child’s phonic knowledge in order that they can be given opportunities to read words by blending the sounds that have already been taught. This then gives them early success in reading and prevents them having to ‘guess’ words. Children will progress through the ‘phonic-banded’ books from P2a – P5c in line with their learning in Phonics sessions. Children in FS2 and KS1 have phonically decodable books from Big Cat. Children in KS2 who still need phonically decodable books have books which have been selected to be more age-appropriate, and these are from both Big Cat and Rising Stars.
When children have a secure phonic knowledge, they then progress to ‘colour banded’ books (orange book band upwards). These are carefully selected books that are colour-coded according to their level of difficulty. We regularly assess children’s reading, to check that the child is reading books with an appropriate level of difficulty (95%+ accuracy).
Children are exposed to a wide variety of literature covering different genres. This includes listening to stories read by adults, taking home reading for pleasure library books (carefully selected from ‘recommended reads’ lists by year group), studying books in more depth in reading lessons and having the opportunity to independently explore topic books and books by our ‘Author of the term’.
Highly skilled teaching assistants hear children read their individual reading books weekly in FS2 and KS1 to check that books are of an appropriate level of challenge. Children who have been identified as being in the bottom 20%, being PP and WT the expected standard, or who may simply not read regularly at home, are identified as being priority readers and read 1:1 at least once a week with an adult.
In FS2 and KS1, reading books are changed once a week. We encourage children to re-read books at least three times before progressing onto the next book. In doing this, they can focus on Read 1 – Word accuracy, Read 2 – Reading fluency and Read 3 – More sophisticated reading comprehension.
In KS2, the children are likely to be reading longer, more challenging texts so are not expected to read the same text multiple times before changing. They are encouraged to change their books independently when they have finished one, but teaching assistants will hear all children regularly to ensure they are on the correct book band.
Alongside daily Phonics teaching in FS2 and KS1 (and for those children who still need it in KS2), children also have regular reading lessons. In FS2 and KS1, these are a combination of guided groups which are matched to phonic levels, and whole class reading sessions which are focussed on using high-quality texts to develop vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. In KS2, children have whole class reading lessons twice a week. These reading sessions focus on teaching the children to:
Develop positive attitudes to reading;
Develop skills and strategies to read for understanding;
Understand vocabulary;
Express, record and present their understanding;
Understand the whole text;
Retrieve information from texts;
Infer understanding, and;
Read to find out

The children will then be able to apply these skills in their own independent reading.

Each class has a reading area that is filled with books suitable for their reading age as well as year group specific books which the children are encouraged to take home to read for pleasure alongside their banded reading books. We also use the Education Library Service and draw on their expertise to source a range of high-quality materials to enhance our topic work. Children are given opportunities to read throughout the day, including during topic lessons.

Not sure what to read next? These documents will help you choose

The Curriculum Maps on the Dalestorth Curriculum page explain the key texts used in all year groups.

https://www.dalestorth.notts.sch.uk/our-dalestorth-curriculum/

Writing

At Dalestorth, writing is based on the use of high-quality texts as a starting point; it is also linked to termly topics and special events when possible. Objectives come from the National Curriculum and are specific to year groups. Talk for Writing is a feature and is the skill of drafting, editing and proof-reading work based on a model text. We aim to provide a broad range of text types across school. Grammar and punctuation are included within the teaching of writing as they are intrinsic components to effective writing. The three areas of composition and effect, text structure and organisation and sentence structure and punctuation are developed across years and text types.

Dalestorth Writing Progression

Writing Genres Covered Whole School 2021-23

Grammar and Spelling

At Key Stage 1, much work is done through the Letters and Sounds scheme to develop children’s spelling choices. The teaching of grammar is integrated within English sessions and then consolidated during writing sessions.

The terminology of Grammar is an important aspect to the teaching of this subject. Our aim is to develop the following skills: knowledge and understanding, and ability to recognise different grammatical features and then the confidence to use these skills in their own writing. We use a range of resources to deliver these skills.

From years 2 to 6, we follow the "Spelling Shed" scheme.

All KS2 children have a spelling lesson and a test once a week. The spelling patterns are set down in the appendices below. Spelling patterns and rules are looked at and learnt to help pupils make informed spelling choices when wishing to write an unfamiliar word.

Please see the Grammar glossary below.

Glossary of Grammar terms

Primary-Spag-Glossary-Parent-and-Carer-Information-Sheet

Handwriting

At Dalestorth we follow the Pen Pals programme of handwriting, this scheme is used across school. Work starts in the Foundation Stage on letter formation and Key Stage 1 continues to secure correct letter formation and improve fine-motor control skills through a variety of activities. Joining starts in Year 1 and continues through KS1 covering a range of joins and refining previous joins. Some children benefit from additional support and intervention groups target these children. Good posture and pencil grip are continuously reinforced. Through Years 3 and 4 handwriting joins are concluded, refined and consolidated. All children should be joining and developing their own style. They work in pencil during these sessions. They may earn a "pen license" graduating on to writing in pen . Pen is used all the time in Years 5 and 6. Support is given for those who still struggle with the control needed; this may be as simple as a different pen or pen gripper.

National English Curriculum

Primary National Curriculum English

Special Events!

Author visit - we had a great time working with Faye Evans. She talked to us about her writing process and inspiration, and we all enjoyed a workshop with her.

Book review Competition

Thank you so much to all the families who joined with the book review competition. Mr Taylor had the tough job of choosing the winners. Lucy and Neve won £5 book vouchers, Erin a £3 book voucher and Ava and Isla a knitted book character. All the entrants received a book of their choices and a book mark. Well done everyone!

World Book Day - "vocabulary" dress up day!

What a fabulous turn out! Each year, you astound us with your creativity! There was a super range of words including swashbuckler, reflective, significant to mention just a few with matching costumes. Thank you so much for all your efforts. In assembly, we had our annual fancy dress competition with staff choosing the winners from each class - a tough job! Congratulations to the winners!

Paul Cookson Visits Dalestorth!

We had a wonderful day on 3rd March, when the poet Paul Cookson came to spend the day with us. He kicked the day off with an awe-inspiring assembly which had us all laughing and joining in with lots of silly poetry. He then spent the rest of the day working with all of the children, talking to them and helping them to create new poems of their own. We all had a brilliant time!

A mystery suitcase

Exciting news! Mr Price dug up a suitcase from our school field! It was buried under the field. The suitcase belonged to a story teller that had travelled the world. He had left a letter for us, along with his treasures and asked us to write some of his stories down. We wrote some fabulous stories using the treasures from the case.

Reading makes us feel good!

Match the book to the teacher competition. The children enjoyed trying to match the teachers with their favourite children's books. The children with the most correct answers received a prize, a book of their choice.

Gareth Baker, author comes to visit

Gareth Baker came to work with us as we celebrated World Book Day.

He talked about his work as a writer and that he thought he was one of the luckiest people alive to be paid for writing his stories. Everyone in school had chance to work with Gareth and we able to buy signed books too!

Please see his website for more information

https://www.gareth-baker.com/