Vision
At Bank View, we want every learner to love reading and writing. Our English curriculum is designed to be engaging and accessible, helping children prepare for life beyond school. We believe that all learners should enjoy reading and have the chance to express their ideas and feelings through words. We believe that a love for reading culture is central to learning, every child should have the opportunity to read for pleasure. We strive to encourage our pupils to become independent, enthusiastic and lifelong learners who can communicate their ideas and emotions well.
Intent
We intend to give every child a high-quality English education. Our curriculum helps children speak, read, and write confidently. We use interesting and engaging books, stories, and activities to inspire learning. We also encourage creativity and imagination, helping children become lifelong readers and writers. We immerse students in rich texts that inspire discussion, enhance reading skills, and provide meaningful writing opportunities. Through drama, role-play, storytelling, art, music, and discussion, we aim to foster a lifelong love of reading and writing.
We intend for our learners to:
- Build confidence in speaking and listening through class discussions, presentations, and debates.
- Read fluently, understand what they read, and develop a love for reading both in school and at home.
- Encourage creative writing and helping children express their thoughts clearly. We also focus on improving grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
- Develop Confident Communication skills
- Build strong comprehension skills and a habit of reading for pleasure and information.
- Explore a rich and varied collection of literature.
- Express ideas clearly, adapt writing for different contexts, and refine their work through editing.
Implementation
Where it all begins…
In years 1-6, English is taught daily across the department, the children are taught in a variety of groupings including both target and mixed target groups, with a high ratio of staff to children. English is taught as a subject in its own right and is developed further within the wider curriculum. The English curriculum has been planned carefully through our Progressions of Skills for both Reading and Writing and shows clear development from Year 1 to Year 6.
Phonics at Bank View
onster Phonics is our whole school Phonics scheme. Monster Phonics is a DfE-validated child-centred phonics programme. We believe that our programme and approach to phonics will give our children the best opportunity to be successful with early reading as well as empower our teachers with excellent subject knowledge and high-quality planning and resources. This ensures children enjoy and get the most from their phonics lessons.
It is a multi-sensory, multi-layered approach to the teaching of phonics, by using a colour-coded system complete with 10 Monster characters to create interest and engagement from the children.
Monster Phonics has a clear philosophy:
- Colour-coded to support memory and facilitate understanding.
- Monster sound cues and actions to support memory and increase engagement.
- Rapid teaching of graphemes, and grammatical rules HFW and CEW to improve reading fluency and access to the curriculum in all areas.
- Consolidate and apply learning in meaningful and purposeful ‘real’ contexts.
- Formative assessment provides opportunities to quickly identify those children who need additional support to keep up.
Phonics is delivered in a whole class format where appropriate. Staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them. Children have regular reading sessions with an adult to ensure that children are regularly practising and applying their phonics knowledge. Teachers regularly assess the pupil’s phonics knowledge using the planned Monster Phonics assessments.
Regular and efficient monitoring of children’s development in phonics is essential if they are to become competent and confident readers, and subsequently writers. The Monster Phonics program has a mapped-out set of assessments which allows for checking children’s grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC), knowledge of High-Frequency Words (HFWs) and Common Exception Words (CEWs) for reading and writing.
More information about our scheme can be found on the Monster Phonics website:
Reading skills at Bank View
All children will be allowed to read aloud, listen to texts read by a teacher regularly and develop their ability to discuss what they have heard constructively. All adults model high expectations of discussion, enjoyment and pleasure in reading, and a desire to learn and experiment with new and unfamiliar vocabulary.
Throughout the school, teachers plan a wide range of activities linked to focus texts books to ensure that the decoding and comprehension skills needed for reading, and the technical skills needed for writing are given a purpose. Spelling, punctuation, grammar and phonics are taught explicitly as well as through whole-class texts. Through reading and interactive discussions, classes cover skills such as identifying keywords and elaborating on them to enhance meaning; learning new vocabulary; generating questions and inferences; and summarising or re-telling extracts in different ways to emphasise the gist.
Oracy skills at Bank View
Oral storytelling underpins much of our teaching of reading and writing. Every culture has its oral traditions and stories, used to communicate beliefs, share information, provide social cohesion and give pleasure. Through story-telling children gain confidence in the use of language, structuring ideas, sentences and stories, and in speaking in front of an audience.
We strive to create a language-rich environment and seek to maximise the quality of conversations that children have with both adults and their peers each day. We appreciate that our children need to learn the routines of back-and-forth talk, through skills of listening to and talking with a partner as well as giving feedback to the group. Alongside maintaining this practice day to day, we have a dedicated Speech and Language Therapist who provides both individual coaching for children, as well as support for the teaching team.
We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and use discussion to communicate and further their learning. Oracy skills are continually being used throughout the curriculum; opportunities are threaded into lessons. Through this, children will learn the devices and techniques to best present their point of view and contribute effectively to discussion and debate.
Writing at Bank View
Children begin with simple mark-making and progress to more structured writing as they move through the school. We use a variety of texts and activities to inspire writing, helping children express their ideas clearly and creatively. Children in the early stages of writing use a writing programme called ‘Squiggle’. Squiggle uses neurological and physiological movements to create marks. Is a developmental approach to early writing. In the final stage of the Squiggle, Programme children are taught letter formation and cursive.
Developing children as positive and confident writers is embedded throughout the school and is a value which we all hold dear for their futures. As the pupils move through the school, they use high-quality text drivers in all year groups to broaden children’s exposure to literature and to drive the writing curriculum. We take our children through a writer’s journey by first introducing them to new genres. Then gathering ideas, having discussions and giving the writing a sense of purpose. Before finally, drafting and creating their final versions. We use the Mighter Writer resource which is used initially as a storytelling tool, to encourage independent storytelling and use of vocabulary. The resource gives the flexibility to change and adapt elements of storytelling instantly alongside supporting the engagement and growing independence of our developing writers.
The teaching of English should enthuse, engage and motivate children to learn and foster their curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. We want our children to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be writers, editors, librarians, poets, news reporters or journalists.
Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling and Vocabulary
The importance of grammar, punctuation, spelling and vocabulary cannot be underestimated. We recognise the importance of using a variety of approaches to the development of spelling including multi-sensory tasks, phonics, investigations, mnemonics and so on.
Grammar, punctuation and spelling can be taught both as discrete sessions and as part of a wider context in an English lesson
Discrete Teaching of Spelling, we teach spelling in context within our units of work. In addition to this, we use the ‘Superhero Spelling’ scheme, which follows on from our phonics teaching in EYFS and KS1. This scheme helps our teachers deliver short, daily, 10–15-minute lessons and ensures that children are taught the full breadth of spelling patterns appropriate to their ability.
Impact
The impact on our children is sustained and steady progress made by all children who are settled in their learning behaviours, and who are developing transferable skills which they will establish for life. We are so proud of the success our learners achieve by the end of their primary journey, and how well this prepares them for their transition to secondary school. We hope that as our children move on from primary to further their education, their creativity, passion and high aspirations for English will travel with them and continue to flourish.
Our smaller class teaching for English allows careful formative assessment to flow through all lessons. Children’s knowledge, application and understanding of skills are carefully monitored, allowing timely feedback to be given and informed changes, if necessary, to be made. All adults contribute to the knowledge of each child’s attainment, their next steps and their talents to enable effective support, intervention and opportunities to deepen understanding.
How we assess learners
We believe in regular and supportive assessments to help every child reach their potential. Here’s how we assess your child’s progress in English:
- Ongoing Observations: Teachers regularly observe children during lessons, noting how they respond to tasks and participate in discussions. This helps us understand each child’s strengths and areas where they might need more support.
- Phonics Checks: We regularly assess their phonics knowledge to ensure they are on track with reading. We use the Monster Phonics assessments to check how well children recognize sounds and letters.
- Reading Assessments: We listen to children read and ask questions to check their understanding. These assessments help us choose the right reading materials and support for each child.
- Writing Assessments: Children’s writing is assessed through their classwork. Teachers look at how well children express their ideas, use grammar, and spell words. We also encourage self-assessment, where children review their own work to see how they can improve (when possible).
- Regular Feedback: Children receive regular, positive feedback from teachers. This helps them understand what they are doing well and where they can improve. Feedback is given in a way that supports each child’s learning style.
- Support and Interventions: If a child needs extra help, we offer targeted support in small groups or one-on-one. We closely monitor progress and adjust support as needed to ensure every child can succeed.
