Reading

At Monkleigh Primary School, we believe that speaking, listening, reading and writing are fundamental life skills, which enable children to communicate effectively in all areas of the curriculum and equips them for the challenges they will face in the wider world. As well as improving their reading skill, we aim for our children to develop a love of reading, appreciating our rich and varied literary heritage and forming a habit of reading widely and often.

INTENT

 We are determined that: 

• Every pupil will learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities. 
• All pupils, including the weakest readers, make sufficient progress to meet or exceed agerelated expectations. 
• Children are able to develop vocabulary, language comprehension, and love of reading through stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction
• Children are familiar with, and enjoy listening to a wide range of stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction.

• All children have dedicated time in school to read and enjoy books.

• Monkleigh’s  phonics programme (Read Write Inc) matches or exceeds the expectations of the National Curriculum and the Early  Learning Goals.
• Monkleigh’s staff have clear expectations of pupils’ phonics progress term by term, from Reception to Year 2. 
• The sequence of reading books shows cumulative progression in phonics knowledge that is matched closely to the school’s phonics programme. 
• Teachers will give pupils sufficient practice in reading and re-reading books that match the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they know, both in school and at home. 
• Reading, including the teaching of systematic, synthetic phonics, is taught from the beginning of our Foundation Stage unit. 
• Ongoing assessment of pupils’ phonics progress is sufficiently frequent and detailed to identify any pupil who is falling behind the programme’s pace. If they do fall behind, targeted support is given immediately. 
• Monkleigh’s staff have developed sufficient expertise in the teaching of phonics and reading and are regularly refreshing their training and expertise.
• Children are exposed to a breadth of high-quality texts during the writing teaching sequences which includes text analysis and deconstruction. These are linked to other areas of the curriculum such as Geography and History and include a broad range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. These are detailed in our two-year rolling programme and are aligned with our rolling programme for other curriculum areas.

 

We give all children the opportunity to enter the magical worlds that books open up to them. We promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading and wider curriculum. We aim to ensure that: 

• Children are encouraged to read a wide range of books, and other forms of texts, in school and at home.

• Children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and to review their books objectively. 

• Children gain a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles. 
• We have a reading culture where children are exposed to a range of high-quality texts in a variety of contexts and have opportunities to browse literature, as well as structured reading activities. This is supported by regular book changes through our membership of the School’s Library Service.
• Children build preferences in reading and choose to read a variety of texts 
• Children recognise individual authors and styles of reading that they enjoy 
• Children engage in book discussion in a range of contexts, alongside both adults and peers 

• Children are given the opportunity to share and recommend a range of books 
• Authors are invited into school to share their love of reading and writing reading books for children
• Children are regularly assessed in their reading skills by using RWI data collection sheets and Reading Evidence Gathering Grids.
• We use high quality texts to regulary read aloud to children in Class (see Link) In FSU and Key Stage 1 children have "favourite five" texts which are read regulary in addition to other high quality texts in fiction, non fiction and poetry.In Key Stage 2 adults read regularly from Class reader (see Link) and books from the same author are available in Class.
•  2022.05.17_Monkleigh_RR_visit_note.pdf

IMPLEMENTATION

A typical lesson at out school in FSU and Key Stage 1 follows the Read Write Inc (RWI) scheme which we started using in 2021. Some children from Key stage 1 who have completed the programme go into the Key Stage 2 class for English and a few children who need extra support go into a group of RWI pupils at the appropriate level. This all happens at the same time of day across the school and the children move confidently between their classes and the groups that they are in. This is assessed and reviewed every half Term.

The majority of children in Key Stage 2 are taught in their class groups and the teachers follow the Babcock teaching sequences (See separate overview) and if possible this is linked to another area of learning such as Geography or History. Reading is linked to the teaching sequence, to the children’s interests and to the topics being studied that term. Relevant books are supplied by Devon Library Service and all children read on a daily basis. Children who need extra support in reading are heard individually by the class teacher or a Teaching Assistant. Some children receive further support from the Fresh Start programme linked to RWI during daily lessons. 

Key Stage 1 pupils read every day in school in their RWI lessons and have free access to a wide range of library books in their classes. They are also expected to read regularly at home and parents write in their reading diaries.

All children have reading diaries in Key Stage 2 and they write in them regularly. They are also expected to read at home ad parents make a comment in the diaries which link home and school.

Key Stage  1 and 2 teachers use the Evidence gathering grids to record pupil progress every half term.

In addition to this at Monkleigh Primary School we have:

• Well-chosen and engaging curriculum texts 

• Involvement in World Book Day reading activities to share a love of books 

• Shared book time across the school in Buddies
• Favourite five texts which the children hear regularly and learn and remember
• Visits from well-known authors through Appledore Book festival
• Inviting and exciting class book corners with featured texts
• High quality whole class stories read to the class by an adult
• Focus on maintaining high quality, interesting and well-matched books in the class libraries through the use of the Schools Library Service topic collection. Books are changed every term and 200 books from the general library collection are changed annually. 
• Sets of group reading books to support English teaching sequences from the Schools Library Service.
• Parents regularly send in photos of their children reading at home
• We use NFER reading,grammar and spelling teast for Years 2-6 termly to form part of our assessments. These help to inform teacher judgements on progress and attainment.

 IMPACT

As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic readers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy skills. They are confident to take risks in their reading and love to discuss and share their ideas. 

 

Our English Lead is: Mrs Kate Slocombe

Our Read Write INC /phonics lead is Mrs Kate Emptage

We work in conjunction with the Ilsham Hub to constantly improve our practice and our whole school love of reading.

 

Writing

Intent

At Monkleigh Primary School, we believe that speaking, listening, reading and writing are fundamental life skills, which enable children to communicate effectively in all areas of the curriculum and equips them for the challenges they will face in the wider world. As well as improving their writing skill, we endeavour to create a love for literacy. We want every child to leave Monkleigh with the skills of an excellent writer. Throughout their time at our school children develop their skills by exploring a wide-range of genres, with a focus on exploring a range of models of excellence and using these to guide the drafting and editing process. We expect the highest standards of writing every time a child writes in any subject. 

At Monkleigh Primary School we aim that: 

• Children have the ability to write with fluency and each has an author’s voice. 
• Children are writing for a purpose and their writing is engaging; they think about the impact they want their writing to have on the reader and know how they will achieve this. 
• Children develop writing from high quality text models and worked examples. 
• Children develop proficiency in writing in a range of genres and have alarge and variedbank of vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description. 
• Opportunities for writing purposefully are developed through other areas of the curriculum and beyond the school. 
• Children develop writing stamina. 
• Children are motivated to re-read, edit and improve their writing so every piece of writing they produce is to the best of their ability and better than the last. 
• Children display excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented, punctuated and spelt correctly

At Monkleigh Primary School, we ensure that children develop of a love of writing and the skills needed to be an effective writer. 

• Teachers ensure that short and long writing opportunities are regularly provided in a range of curriculum subjects. 
• Modelled, shared, guided and independent writing are frequently used by teachers. 
• Children are provided with clear expectations and outcomes when writing. 
• Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar and Phonics are taught explicitly and applied to their text, this also is aligned with the Devon Education Service English progression of grammar and vocabulary. 
• Once children complete the RWI programme they are grouped for the RWI spelling scheme.

• High-quality texts are used as models for children’s own writing 
• In Key stage 1 teachers follow the Read write Inc scheme – some children may join the lower key stage 2 class once they have completed Read Write Inc 
• In Key Stage 2 Teachers use a three-stage approach: Elicitation task on purple paper linked to the key outcome for the teaching sequence, a scaffolded supported piece of writing showing the children model writing and key grammar, on yellow paper, and a final independent piece of work on green paper which is to be assessed and used to complete the Writing Evidence Gathering Grid
• We use NFER reading,grammar and spelling teast for Years 2-6 termly to form part of our assessments. These help to inform teacher judgements on progress and attainment. 

Impact

Teachers live mark work as much as possible to make marking meaningful and in the moment in order for the children to learn effectively and efficiently

As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic writers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy skills. They are confident to take risks in their writing, they have flow, flair and control, and love to discuss and share their ideas. 

Our English Lead is: Mrs Kate Slocombe

Our Read Write INC /phonics lead is Mrs Kate Emptage

We work in conjunction with the Ilsham Hub to constantly improve our practice and our whole school love of writing. 

 2_year_english_programme_1.pdf

Oracy statement of intent                                           

Oracy Intent Statement

At Monkleigh Primary School Oracy is a priority which underpins all of our planning and learning as we recognise that oracy is essential for the educational process, for careers, relationships and self-belief. If children can learn to speak with fluency and confidence this will help them have a positive start in life.

Learning to speak with confidence is at the heart of being an effective communicator, and it helps students to articulate their ideas in a clear and logical way. It also helps them to make sense of their own thought processes and this leads to them being able to write articles in a much more clearly. We know that a wide and varied vocabulary is part of the development of confident speech and accuracy in grammar. Pupils who are able to express themselves clearly will be able to articulate their ideas, write more clearly, express themselves well at interviews and take part in challenging debates in school and in their future employment. The more adept the pupils become in reasoning through speech, the more likely they are to engage with other subjects that have their foundations in logical reasoning, such as science and maths.

Implementation

During their career at Monkleigh Primary School we will teach children how to develop their oracy skills through class discussions, role play, debate and reasoning. We will give them the tools to be able to do this by giving them sentence stems, developing their vocabulary, giving them roles within discussion and by keeping oracy at the heart of our curriculum. From Early Years to Year 6 the children are encouraged to talk in full sentences and are given examples of how to start effective sentences using sentence stems. (Starters to sentences such as I agree because, In my opinion, I disagree because, the results show that). This carries on throughout their school career and is built upon by introducing and using key vocabulary across all subjects. This is documented in our vocabulary lists for each subject. Children learn about the key roles in discussion and start with the Instigator role. This is the person in the discussion who starts it off. The other roles are introduced:

The Builder who adds another opinion similar to the Instigators opinion

The Challenger who may disagree politely

The summariser who summarises the key points at the end of the discussion

The school uses the Voice 21 criteria for teaching Oracy which is shown below in the table.