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English
Thornhill’s Key Principles for the Teaching of English:
At Thornhill Primary School, English is at the heart of our learning and teaching and essential to every area of the curriculum. Our English curriculum promotes language development that enables children to communicate effectively and to appreciate the richness, magic and power of the written word. It enables children to see language as a source of pleasure and enjoyment and use it to develop powers of imagination, creativity and inventiveness. Developing a love of reading, and the importance of this for our children both now and in the future, underpins our approach in every aspect of the curriculum.
In the EYFS, children are exposed to English right from the start through sharing books with adults, listening to, learning and performing nursery rhymes, songs and stories. We recognise that literacy skills are dependent on communication skills and there is a strong focus on the development of listening and attention, understanding and speaking. Our recently renovated EYFS environment offers a literacy rich environment promoting engagement with reading and writing across the curriculum both inside and outside. There are numerous activities and resources that promote mark making and when ready children are introduced to letter formation through direct teaching of handwriting. A love of writing is promoted through giving children opportunities to write for a variety of purposes throughout the environment. In Reception and KS1, more structured activities support children’s writing development alongside these other opportunities.
Systematic phonics teaching is introduced from Nursery through Ruth Miskin’s renowned Read Write Inc. (RWI) Phonics programme. The rigorous training provided equips our staff with equal expertise and through careful assessment and monitoring, we can very quickly identify any necessary group changes. At home, children are further supported in developing their reading skills using special RWI books that are matched to their phonic knowledge. If required, RWI can be used as a form of targeted intervention for children even in KS2.
Throughout KS1 to KS2, English is taught through a ‘core text’ (Power of Reading) approach. This is an immersive approach to teaching English, allowing for connections to be made to all other areas of the English curriculum. Each year group is taught via class novels/books that are used by the class teacher to underpin the teaching of all aspects of English – speaking, listening, reading and writing. This allows children to study a genre for deeper understanding before applying their knowledge to create their own written pieces. Where possible, the chosen texts will be linked to other curriculum subjects to foster a cross-curricula approach to learning.
The Effective Teaching of English at Thornhill
Reading:
In EYFS and KS1 we teach children to read using the Read Write Inc. (RWI) Phonics programme, developed by Ruth Miskin. RWI uses synthetic phonics, teaching children phoneme-grapheme correspondences in a structured, cumulative sequence. They learn to blend sounds to read words ("Fred Talk"), write the corresponding letters using visual mnemonic prompts, and immediately apply these skills by reading decodable stories closely matched to their exact phonic knowledge.
In KS2 we move to a structured whole-class reading system, which focuses on developing both fluency and KS2 reading skills simultaneously. Each reading session will give time to focus on expanding vocabulary, practicing retrieval and reading fluency/performance while also focusing on a key reading skill.
Writing:
At Thornhill, our writing curriculum is designed to enable our children to become imaginative, engaging and precise writers who show control as well as adaptability in style when asked to write for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. At the core of our curriculum is the belief that children should be taught using high-quality texts that vary in genre; include both fiction and non-fiction; show cultural diversity; and are matched to the needs of individual classes and groups of children.
By using this structure to shape our writing curriculum, the children are presented with a model which enables them to understand authors’ choices and intentions, demonstrating what an effective piece of writing looks like, as well as providing a solid understanding of grammar; this provides the children with clear end points and outcome pieces to work towards. Through teaching writing skills alongside these high-quality texts, children are shown how the choices that they make as a writer impact on the reader in differing ways.
Across the school we write using a three-week writing cycle which is broken down into:
- Week 1: Immersion - in this week we hook children in with an immersion lesson, then build up their understanding of the story/text/purpose of their writing, utilising drama, oracy and information gathering)
- Week 2: Skills – in this week we build the children’s skill sby teaching the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling/vocabulalry skills they will need to write their text
- Week 3: Application – This week we will draft, edit and publish our final piece of writing, utilising and independently applying the skills and knowledge gained in weeks 1&2.
We use high-quality class texts to underpin all parts of the cycle and write for a range of purposes (core four being: the entertain, to inform, to persuade and to discuss).
Handwriting
Handwriting is pivotal to children being able to communicate their ideas. Not only does it make children’s ideas clear on the page, confident handwriting also allows them to lessen the cognitive load on motor skills, allowing a focus on forming ideas within their writing. In EYFS and KS1, we follow the RWI handwriting programme, leading up to following a 3-week cycle in Year 1: practice a 3-day cycle of: letter formation - fixing errors - apply to words. As pupils enter Key Stage 2, we follow the Nelson handwriting scheme. Years 3 and 4 learn and then consolidate letter joins across complex spelling patterns while developing consistent letter heights, parallel slants, and proportional ascenders/descenders, ultimately allowing Years 5 and 6 to master speed, stamina, and stylistic adaptability for various writing purposes.
