TIG Federation

In the TIG Federation, we believe that English is the heart of the curriculum. Our creative and highly engaging English curriculum inspires and supports learners to develop their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills; thereby enabling them to become interested, effective and active lifelong learners.

Our carefully tailored learning sequences develop learners’ ability to speak and write fluently, allowing them to communicate their ideas and emotions to others. Our use of carefully selected high-quality texts, ensures that learners are exposed to a range of texts, including those from different cultures, during their time with us. Reading is encouraged to ensure we promote a culture of children and adults who love to read. Learners are immersed in vocabulary-rich learning environments which support language development, and help to expand their own vocabulary.

Early reading begins in (nursery at Staveley) Reception where the adults promote a love of reading and listening to stories alongside laying the foundations of their phonics learning journey. By the end of Key Stage One, our children are fluent readers who enjoy the delights of reading for pleasure and to learn - those children who are continuing to develop these skills are given the support they require through effective interventions. These different aspects of our English curriculum collectively support our learners in being able to communicate, read and write clearly, accurately, and coherently. Our challenging and inspiring English curriculum, which is aligned to the National Curriculum, develops their knowledge, understanding and skills when reading and writing a range of age-appropriate genres offering a wide choice of diverse texts.

Early Reading

From the very first day the children arrive in our federation, they are surrounded by quality texts and immersed in an environment where reading is held at the heart. We teach early reading through the systematic, synthetic phonics programme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Right from the start of Reception children take part in a daily phonics lesson which follows the progression for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds and this continues in Year One to ensure children become fluent readers. We teach phonics for 20 - 25 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress. Four new phonemes and their corresponding graphemes are taught (GPCs) each week and they are used in the final lesson of the week to review the week’s learning. Children will also learn tricky words during these sessions. In the Autumn and Spring term, Reception learns phase 2 and phase 3 GPCs and will spend the final term learning phase 4. 

Year 1 begins the Autumn term with the revision of phases 2, 3 and 4 before learning phase 5, which will be completed by the end of the year. Year 2 children will begin the year by revisiting phase 5 and other previously taught phases to ensure all children are completely confident with applying these GPCs in both their reading and also their writing.

Half termly assessments take place through Reception and Year 1 to help inform future teaching and help identify children who have gaps in their phonic knowledge and need additional practice. Daily assessment of learning also takes place within the classroom so staff can quickly identify any children who are in danger of falling behind and provide the appropriate daily ‘Keep Up’ intervention.

Children in Reception, Year 1 and 2, read fully decodable books with an adult at least 3 times per week during our ‘Reading Practice’ sessions. These books are then sent home for children to build their reading fluency and demonstrate their developing skills and phonetic knowledge to their parents/carers. The children also have the opportunity to choose a free-choice book to share at home for enjoyment. 

Reading in KS2

Children read daily until they reach their end of year expectation and those children who require additional support in developing these key skills are identified quickly and further support put in place through intervention. The Teaching Booth approach is used to teach reading at Kirk Hammerton and Long Marston from Years 2 through to 6 and from Year 3 through to Year 6 at Staveley. Three days a week are based on linked texts, and twice a week the whole class reading is based around our core text ensuring consistency in approach throughout school and equipping the children with secure reading skills to be transferred to any independent reading whether for learning, or pleasure.

Our reading lessons involve dialogue between the teacher and children for the purpose of jointly constructing the meaning of a text. Teacher modelling is a vital aspect of our approach which makes reading skills and strategies visible to learners in order to support them in developing these skills. The teacher models a number of effective reading strategies by ‘thinking aloud’ to articulate the reading process and explicit use of specific skills, modelling of language structures to be used (the language of speculation), as well as demonstrating the importance of ‘active reading’ (questioning and clarifying to aid comprehension) which the children learn to use for themselves. This then equips them with the necessary skills to be effective and successful readers. 

Our reading offer of The Teaching Booth and using VIPERS consists of: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval, summarising and sequencing. 

Our assessment of reading is also robust; we use National Curriculum expectations and our reading ladders to support planning and assessment within each year group. We use PIRA as formal assessment opportunities alongside summative assessment strategies such as one to one reading, observations during reading lessons and comprehension questions. 

In Reception and Year 1, children follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics programme, as outlined above. 

Year 2 pupils follow the Little Wandle spelling programme. This begins in the Autumn term with a phase 5 review unit. This is then followed by a unit called ‘Bridge to Spelling’ which consists of 5 weeks of daily lessons where the children complete the alphabetic code and learn the underpinning concepts of spelling. From the spring term onwards, they cover 14 units of spelling which explicitly teaches the year 2 spelling rules outlined in the National Curriculum. 

From year 3-6, children are taught spelling following The Vocabulary Ninja Spelling programme which effectively teaches the given spelling rules, directly linked to the National curriculum.

We have an engaging writing curriculum with a clear structure and sequence that enables pupils to develop their language, composition and creativity. Our writing units are based around high-quality texts or stimulus, inspiring pupils to write . A unit of work is carefully planned for each year group to allow any links to other areas of the curriculum to be made, where appropriate. Each English unit begins with looking in detail at a key text called a WAGOLL (What a Good One Looks Like) which then drives the aspirational writing for pupils to achieve. 

Opportunities to use and apply grammar and vocabulary are embedded throughout a unit of work, and learners are taught new grammar objectives in line with the expectations of National Curriculum. The explicit teaching of new grammar and vocabulary takes place within the context of the focus text. High quality WAGOLLs are used to expose pupils to grammar in context to enable children to apply this in their independent writing. 

The acquisition of new vocabulary is an essential aspect of English teaching and therefore new vocabulary is systematically introduced through our quality texts selected and vocabulary checks during Guided Reading. Teacher-led writing sequences are used to equip learners with the skills they need for successful, independent writing. During this phase of learning, the teacher actively models the writing and self-checking process, also illustrating appropriate attitudes to writing (such as self-editing), and then the learners are given the opportunity to apply these in independent writing. At the end of the sequence of learning in writing, we ensure children have the opportunity to ‘publish’ a final piece to showcase their knowledge, skills and understanding of the genre. 

Our assessment of writing is robust; we use our writing skills progression to support both planning and assessment within each year group. These are used, alongside genre and year group specific checklists, to assess the published pieces of writing created at the end of a unit. 

Cross curricular links – Development in spoken language skills, which underpin learners’ development in reading and writing, are embedded throughout learning in English and the wider curriculum. Our curriculum design ensures the continual development of these skills through wide and varied opportunities to apply them: learners discuss, speculate and debate in subjects such as Guided Reading, PSHE, RE, Science and English. Spoken language skills are built on at an age-appropriate level to equip learners with strong linguistic skills that enable effective communication.