It is our intent at Becket Primary School to provide pupils with a high-quality education in English that will teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively. We want a culture where children can be confident in the art of speaking and listening, reading and writing to communicate effectively and to enjoy and be enthusiastic about writing and reading. 

The curriculum is supported by the 3 I's: intent, implementation and impact, and the subject overviews. Please see below. 

 

READING

We believe that becoming confident, independent readers will help children unlock the world around them, so we strive to create an environment where books are celebrated and staff and children have opportunities to share and discuss books together daily. Children at Becket will hear high quality stories read to them every day to develop their vocabulary, support their comprehension of texts and to inspire them to become avid readers themselves. The children will also read aloud to staff and each other in class and across the school in our reading assemblies to develop their reading fluency and independence as readers. Please see our newsletters to find out which books we are sharing in each class or have a read of the Becket Reading Spine below to see the full list of books that we enjoy reading in each year group. This spine is updated regularly as staff and children discover new books and authors that inspire or excite us. 

 

PHONICS

We use Unlocking Letters and Sounds which was validated by the DfE in December 2021. Please see the parent information pack below for more information or do speak with your child's class teacher if you would like to know more. We run parent workshops at the start of each year as well. 

At Becket, our preschool will focus on developing phonological awareness by teaching children sound discrimination, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, oral blending and segmenting.

We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4.

Phase 2 Actions, Images and Letter Formation

Phase 3 Actions, Images and Letter Formation

In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, they learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional Common Exception Words. By the end of Year 1 children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling. In Year 1 all children are screened using the national Phonics Screening Check.

In Year 2, phonics continues to be revisited to ensure mastery of the phonetic code and any child who does not meet age related expectations will continue to receive support to close identified gaps.

For further details please see the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression. ULS Progression Overview

To ensure no child is left behind at any point in the progression, children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions. The lowest attaining 20% of pupils are closely monitored to ensure these interventions have an impact.

 

READING PROGRESSION

As children move through the early stages of acquiring phonics, they practise by reading texts which are fully decodable and closely tailored to their current phonic knowledge.  In Reception, these are always selected for them by the teacher or teaching assistant. Books are changed frequently, whilst allowing sufficient time for reading and rereading at home.

Once children have a secure knowledge of the sounds taught and can blend words confidently, they access our numbered book banded reading scheme which has books from various published schemes and is designed to give children experience of a variety of reading genres. There are fiction and non-fiction books within each level to encourage the development of comprehension skills.

Following this, the children will move on to be considered 'free readers' and are encouraged to choose books from our class and school libraries that interest them. The books are colour coded to allow staff to make suggestions and guide the children towards books that are age-appropriate.

Comprehension is taught through individual, guided and whole class reading. In EYFS and KS1 this will be through small group or 1:1 reading using phonetically decodable books as well as discussions about their class books. In KS2 we have a two-week timetable which allows for whole class teaching, small group work and time for Reading for Pleasure. This variety allows staff to support the children to understand and reflect on the texts they are reading through the VIPERS skills of understanding vocabulary, making inferences, making predictions, being able to explain what they have read to others and the skill of summarising key events or information within a text. 

 

WRITING

We believe that all children should see themselves as writers, and that they should have the opportunity to express themselves through their writing. Here at Becket, we have a spiral curriculum. Children will be taught specific genres in their years groups and then these genres are progressively revisited in later year groups to ensure learning has been embedded.

We have a writing process; this starts with all children looking at a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like) and then, we unpick the features in these texts using our rubric. Children then plan out their writing and after the planning stage, they will write their first (and sometimes only) draft. When writing, the children have a rubric that they self-assess against to ensure that it is a successful piece of work. Children are encouraged from year 1 to self-assess and edit their work using a purple pen. If children have done parts of a text at different times, they may get the opportunity to publish their work in best.  

We use talk for writing and the writing revolution to support the children's grammar, planning and writing. 

Grammar is taught throughout the writing process. Most of the time, particular grammar that will be prevalent in the text type that they are writing will be taught prior, but sometimes grammar is taught in-between or after because there has been a weakness across the class. 

Spelling is taught daily with a process of teach, practise and test throughout the week. Spelling shed is used to teach our spelling curriculum at Becket and children also access this at home as well. 

Clear, legible and joined handwriting is taught in year 1 and continues throughout all year groups.