At The Rackham, English unites the important skills of speaking and listening, reading, spelling and writing. Our aim is to develop our pupils’ skills in these areas by providing them with consistently exciting and challenging learning opportunities. We aim for children to be reflective readers, independent writers and confident speakers.
Speaking and Listening (Oracy)
Talk is fundamental to children’s development and we recognise the importance of speaking and listening for learning, and communication.
Reading
At The Rackham children begin their reading supported by FFT Success for All phonics scheme (DFE approved). Every child in Reception and Year One takes part in a Shared Reading session each day. The texts match exactly the phonics which has been taught and allows children to develop key reading skills at an appropriate level and pace. The reading programme continues at home with the Shared Reading texts made available to parents.
We follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme Pathways to Read. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for reading. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the reading activities provided.
We deliver three whole class shared reading lesson per week from years 2-6 as well as individual reading. In our shared reads, there is a clear teaching focus with the opportunity to master key reading skills in each session. There are follow on reading tasks to enable pupils to evidence the skills they have mastered independently.
Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Read approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
You will find the end of year expectations for reading for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.
We also use Pathways to Write to drive our writing curriculum. This aligns with Pathways to Read ensuring meaningful links for our pupils with texts and topics that are used across Literacy, Humanities and Science.
Phonics and Early Reading Policy
English Pathways to Read objectives
Reading with your child
Writing
At The Rackham we follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme ‘Pathways to Write.’ Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided. Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
You will find the end of year expectations for writing, reading and spoken language for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.
English Pathways to Write objectives
Writing for pleasure_ advice for Parents and Carers
Spelling
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At The Rackham we follow a mastery approach to the teaching of spelling through the programme ‘Pathways to Spell’. It is a programme designed to deliver the statutory content of the Primary National Curriculum for spelling in key stages 1 and 2. Through weekly teaching of spelling objectives and development of a whole school approach to word transcription, vocabulary development and proof-reading, the programme aims to develop children as proficient spellers.
You will find the end of year expectations for spelling for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a weekly basis, please contact your class teacher.
English Pathways to Spell objectives
Phonics
At The Rackham we use the FFT Success For All phonics scheme across Reception and Key Stage One.
FFT Success for All Phonics is a complete systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme that has been validated by the Department for Education.
In the attached documents you will find The Weekly Scope and Sequence of the programme, which gives a clear view on what is being taught and when throughout Reception and up to Year One and a Parent/Carer Guide offering information and advice for the parents of children learning phonics. For children who continue to need phonics support beyond Year One, the appropriate programme lesson plans and resources will be used to support children as they close any gaps in their learning.
Please look out for opportunities on Tapestry and in school to find out more about our phonics lessons at The Rackham.
