Curriculum Rationale

In ensuring that ‘Better Never Stops’, our English curriculum aims to ensure that:

• Our pupils grow to be individuals that habitually read widely, both for pleasure and for information, as a result of teaching practices that ensures ‘every child can’.
• Pupils become confident, articulate speakers, enjoying the opportunity to, and are able to, speak, perform, present and debate confidently so that they are equipped with the skills for their future careers/employment.
• Pupils appreciate our rich and varied literacy heritage.
• Pupils are engaged, confident and able writers – writing clearly, accurately and coherently for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences – so that they are equipped with the writing skills for a range of situations they may encounter in their later lives.
• Pupils are resilient writers, constantly editing and improving their work in aspiring to better themselves as learners so that they can build the skills of reflection, creativity and perseverance.
• Pupils take pride in their handwriting as a result of perseverance and stamina.

We believe that the importance of developing reading competence cannot be overstated as it is the fundamental facilitator of much learning throughout life. Children must be encouraged to become independent, knowledgeable and reflective readers. 

 

Curriculum Intent

Reading is the centrepiece of our curriculum design.

Our clear curriculum intent - see Reading Progression at the bottom of the page) outlines the intended knowledge and skills that pupils learn in reading throughout their course of study at Spa Academy Askern. This ensures that the teaching of reading across school is sequential and progressive, building upon pupils' prior knowledge and providing appropriate challenge. Our knowledge and skills are divided into VIPERS - reflecting the reading domains of the National Curriculum. Short-term planning then ensures the intended knowledge in this document is reached through well-sequenced lessons.

Alongside this, it is our curriculum's intent that our pupils become fluent readers. Teaching (and individual reading) is adapted based on where pupils' fluency sits within the Fluency Progression document (see bottom of page). The intent is to ensure pupils become fluent readers as they move onto more challenging text.

Alongside the high-quality and challenging Literature-Led Curriculum, we ensure our pupils engage with, listen to, rehearse and perform a wide-range of poetry. Our intention behind our Poetry Spine is that pupils become familiar with key poets and their inspiring work. 

 

Curriculum Implementation

Spa's curriculum intent is achieved through: reading lessons, reading books (including early reading) and our reading culture. Our approach to each is outlined below. 

Reading Lessons

Reading lessons follow the school's Teaching & Learning principles to provide the maximise student progress. In reading specifically, we have designed - and regularly evaluate the impact of - our reading cycle. 

Our reading curriculum intentions are also delivered through individual reading. 

 

Reading Books

Early Reading

Our tracking of reading allows us to rapidly identify those pupils with gaps in their knowledge of phonics. At Spa Academy Askern we use the Read Write Inc (RWI) programme to ensure those children that still require phonics teaching make accelerated progress. Additionally, We work closely with our feeder infants to ensure that those pupils that did not pass the Y1/Y2 phonics screening and those that still need phonics embedding, recieve targeted intervention.

When using RWI to read the children will:

• learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts;
• learn to read words using Fred Talk;
• read lively stories featuring words they have learned to sound out;
• show that they comprehend the stories by answering questions.

Pupils following this programme use the Read, Write, Inc book that relates to their stage in the programme - ensuring that they are able to decode the books they read at school and at home. 

Vitally, pupils following this programme continue to be a part of whole-class reading to ensure they are accessing, through scaffolds, the vocabulary, context and structures of age-appropriate texts.

 

Developing a 'reading culture'