ENGLISH AT NORTHWAY
Vision
Our English curriculum aims to develop articulate, confident communicators who read fluently, write creatively, and speak with clarity and purpose. Oracy is the foundation for literacy and lifelong learning.
Pupils will:
- Speak confidently in a range of contexts.
- Listen actively and respond appropriately.
- Read fluently with understanding and enjoyment.
- Write clearly, creatively, and for a range of purposes.
- Foster a love of language and literature.
At Northway, we have collaboratively designed a curriculum that progresses seamlessly from year to year, building pupils’ skills and knowledge while nurturing a genuine love of literature.
- Embed Oracy across all subjects.
- Provide systematic teaching of phonics, grammar, and spelling.
- Develop comprehension and critical thinking through high-quality texts.
- Support pupils to become independent writers through structured frameworks.
Inclusive Teaching
Teachers deliver lessons to the whole class and provide personalised adaptations so that every child receives the support they need to succeed. Adaptations may come in the form of additional adult support or scaffolding, completing pre learning tasks, providing extra opportunities for oral rehearsal, spelling aids, magnetic boards, scribing or access to the use of electronic devices. The quantity and complexity of the outcome will also be adjusted to ensure children are able to achieve their potential.
Teaching Approaches
We expect a common approach to teaching to ensure that children have a consistent and progressive journey through the literacy skills that we aim to develop from Nursery through to Year Six. We teach from the National Curriculum. English is organised over a two-year cycle to meet the needs of our mixed age classes.
Oracy
Strategies:
- Daily opportunities for oracy: Using speaking and listening groupings and talk tactics. Teachers plan a range of oracy tasks that include exploratory and presentational talk opportunities.
- Use choral and echo reading to demonstrate and practise prosody.
- Sentence Stems: I agree because…, I would like to add…, In my opinion…
- Drama & Role Play: Re-enact stories, historical events, geographical concepts or scientific processes.
- Debates & Discussions: KS2 pupils debate topics linked to curriculum themes.
- Listening Skills: Use listening ladders and peer feedback.
Inclusive Teaching of Oracy
Staff are trained to deliver high quality sessions that have oracy opportunities woven into them. This ensures that every voice is valued and every child is equipped with the skills to communicate effectively. Staff plan and teach using the ‘Voice 21 Teacher Benchmarks’ that promote an inclusive culture for learning and co constructing knowledge together. Our focus to ‘Value Every Voice’ ensures that all pupils, regardless of ability, background, or language, are encouraged to participate in classroom talk. Teachers are trained to create a culture where every contribution is acknowledged and valued, reducing barriers for less confident speakers or those with additional needs.
Inclusive Oracy Strategies Include:
- Explicitly taught speaking skills.
- Active listening frameworks (e.g. listening ladders).
- Structured opportunities for paired and group discussions.
- Structured opportunities for exploratory talk.
- Praise and feedback linked to oracy skills, not just correctness.
Reading
Strategies:
- Phonics: Daily 20-minute sessions using a validated systematic synthetic phonics program- Active Learn Bug Club.
- Reading books:
-Children that are learning the phonics code, via the systematic synthetic phonics program, have a phonics book matched to their current phonics teaching, and where necessary an additional phonics book to support them with any individual needs.
-In the infants, once children have successfully finished the phonics program they move onto fluent readers and move up the levels based on their reading ability.
-Infant children also take home a ‘library book’, to be read with an adult, to broaden their vocabulary and develop their love of reading.
-Junior children begin our Accelerated Reader program and select books matched specifically to their reading ability. Children that are experiencing reading failure will begin on a multi-sensory approach to reading, with memory bonding techniques. This is a highly personalised and adaptive approach to reading and therefore cannot be sufficiently supported with a singular ‘levelled’ book.
- Choral Reading: Nursery through to Year Three are expected to hold a daily choral read with a focus on phonic strategies, prosody, fluency and comprehension. From Year four up until Year six frequent choral reads are carried out across the week.
- Reading Comprehension: In EYFS, the explicit teaching of reading skills happens weekly. Typically, the English plans begin with a reading focus for the first two to three days and then shifts to a writing focus on the final two days. In KS1, the explicit teaching of reading skills happens on a biweekly basis. The reading week teaches reading skills mainly focusing on the skills of retrieval, inference and vocabulary. This is taught to the whole class, with adaptations made for SEND, and this supports the work that will follow in the writing week. From Year Three to Year Six, the reading to writing journey varies depending on the length of the text that is being studied. The reading weeks mainly focusses on the skills of retrieval, inference and vocabulary as well as exploring predictions and summarising. In the Juniors, Accelerated Reader is used as the main vehicle for developing reading comprehension. Pupils have four sessions per week (for half an hour) to read a book and complete a comprehension or vocabulary quiz that is personalised to their ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ level. This means that children are exposed to comprehension questions at a personalised level.
- During the reading weeks, staff plan explicit opportunities for pupils to discuss characters, themes, and author choices.
- Reading Corners: Across the school, we have designated special spaces for reading with a diverse range of texts.
- Diverse range of texts:
-During English lessons, staff have carefully planned for a diverse range of texts to ensure a broad and balanced reading experience across the school.
-Staff have carefully selected a diverse range of ‘reading for pleasure’ class texts to be read outside of the English lesson, they form part of our ‘Treasure Trove Book’ collection.
-Staff have created an overview of books that are used across the whole curriculum to ensure a diverse range of texts are read to the children in all subject areas.
Inclusive Teaching in Reading
Staff are expected, where possible, to keep children together as a whole class. We aim to teach reading skills consistently and progressively without dividing children into smaller groups where upon the teacher may lose sight of their specific needs. Instead, we employ a model of ‘keep up, not catch up’ and ensure children that are working below age related expectations have additional support outside of the phonics, spelling or English sessions to work on personalised targets.
Inclusive Reading Strategies Include:
- Choral reads ensure that every child is exposed to age-appropriate texts to support their decoding and or comprehension skills without being held back due to their personal ability to read. They are not singled out or held back in ability groupings.
- Whole class reading skills are taught within English lessons based on the class texts. Teachers ensure that the whole class is taught reading strategies, comprehension skills and are given the opportunity to explore a text through discussion, drama, and exploratory talk. Children are not limited or segregated into ‘guided read groups’ where the potential for children to fall further behind due to lack of exposure may occur.
- Teachers scaffold texts and reading texts to reduce complexity without reducing content: this may include chunking, adding supportive images, providing sentence starters or guided questions to prompt discussions and exploratory talk.
- Whole-class teaching of phonics is taught daily, with personalised adjustments made where necessary. Additional support is given outside of the phonics session to ensure that children keep up rather than play catch up.
- Teachers follow an explicit and consistent systematic synthetic phonics program from Nursery through to the end of KS1. Once a child is fluent in reading and has completed the phonic program successfully, they move onto a structured spelling support program that is progressive and consistent in teaching style to reduce cognitive overload.
Spelling
- In Year 2 and throughout KS2, most children continue to be taught spelling in discrete sessions using Read, Write, Inc Spelling to secure spelling patterns and apply their phonic knowledge. Read Write Inc Spelling supports the curriculum exceptionally well and aims to provide children with an advanced knowledge of spelling which they will apply to their writing. This programme also incorporates the teaching of the National Curriculum word lists. Children who require additional phonic support receive this based on their individual needs.
Writing
Strategies:
- Talk for Writing: A range of oral activities are set to support writing. Children are given frequent opportunities for oral rehearsal before writing tasks.
- Modelled Writing: Teachers will share WAGOLLs that demonstrate the expected level of writing. The teacher will demonstrate the writing process on the board.
- Shared Writing: Pupils contribute ideas while teacher scaffolds and writes.
- Editing: Specific time is given to make revisions on punctuation, spellings, vocabulary, and sentence structure using a purple pen.
- Purposeful and Personal Writing Opportunities: Our long-term planning ensures that a reading to writing journey takes place over a two-to-three-week basis to give all writing a context. Where appropriate children write for a purpose to motivate and engage them. Opportunities for ‘writing for pleasure’ are considered in the planning stage and at appropriate times.
Inclusive Teaching in Writing
Our approach to teaching writing is grounded in inclusivity, ensuring that every child can access and engage with learning. Teachers deliver high-quality whole-class instruction while providing targeted adaptations for pupils with additional needs.
Inclusive Writing Strategies Include:
- Transcription is taught from Reception, in line with whole school approaches to ensure that automaticity is developed in early writing, freeing up working memory to focus on composition.
- Placing oracy at the heart of all sessions and using it as a powerful scaffold into writing tasks.
- Offering extra opportunities for oral rehearsal
- Using dictation where it is appropriate to allow children that may struggle with cognitive overload to show writing skills that may sometimes be weakened by a high focus on composition.
- Pre-teaching key vocabulary
- Using a cursive handwriting script across the school to support auditory learners
- Using visual and tactile resources such as magnetic boards or spelling aids
- Supporting with scribing or electronic devices where appropriate
- Tasks will be differentiated in both quantity and complexity whilst still based around the whole class objectives.
Handwriting
At Northway, we have found that fluent handwriting is a significant predictor of positive writing outcomes, while a lack of such fluency can constrain pupils by:
- hindering their composition – the cognitive demands of handwriting can divert attention away from other elements of writing, such as planning, composing and revising.
- reducing motivation – handwriting difficulties can make writing more effortful and frustrating, which may affect pupils’ motivation.
- preventing pupils from being able to re-read and edit their own work and preventing others understanding what they have written – poor handwriting can devalue the content.
This is why we strive for pupils to achieve automaticity in handwriting from the moment children join our school. Teachers follow our ‘Northway Handwriting Guidance’ to ensure progression, automaticity and consistency.
Strategies:
- All staff use the agreed Northway cursive handwriting script to talk pupils through each letter formation to ensure consistency.
- In Nursery, pupils are taught the pre cursive strokes.
- In Reception, pupils are taught how to form the cursive letters without being expected to join them. This ensures that the correct muscle memory is formed and children do not have to re learn how to form letters in Year One.
- Infant staff have a daily handwriting session.
- Junior staff have frequent handwriting sessions across the week.
- Staff ensure the physical elements, such as correct sitting and positioning of writing materials are explicitly taught.
Inclusive Teaching in Handwriting
- Teachers do not underestimate the need to focus on the explicit teaching of both letter formation (controlling the size, speed and direction) and the physical elements (holding and maneuvering the pencil, positioning the body, positioning the paper). Teachers should model the correct way to hold a pencil and maintain posture when writing. Frequent practice ensures automaticity is achieved and therefore reduces cognitive demand for all pupils.
- Frequent whole class teaching of handwriting across the school each week to ensure each child has chance to gain automaticity.
- Adaptations for writing are made for individuals, such as pencil grips, sloping boards, wobble cushions and carefully considered seating arrangements.