We believe oracy is important because we would like our children to have the confidence to articulate their feelings, needs and wishes; share ideas; and ultimately use their oracy skills to further their own learning and education.  As a school, we feel it is extremely important to provide a dedicated curriculum and an environment that promotes and encourages good oracy skills.  We feel that this environment will build confidence, improve academic outcomes and equip children to thrive beyond school. In addition to academic success, we feel that good speaking and listening skills help promote emotional wellbeing and equip children with the skills to build and maintain positive relationships with peers.   

At Newker Primary School, we develop children’s speaking and listening from an early age and are currently developing a whole-school oracy curriculum.  In EYFS, we employ an array of speaking and listening opportunities including exploratory play, stories, rhymes and songs. Language is modelled, repeated, explained and discussed.   Children are encouraged to listen attentively and speak in full sentences.  This modelling of language continues throughout school through a range of opportunities, activities and techniques.  Children are given regular opportunities to share news, contribute ideas and work within different collaborative groupings. Talk partners are used to encourage good communication, develop confidence and support learning across all subjects.  Teachers use open-ended questions to promote discussion, questions and explanations. Children’s language is supported through the use of sentence stems and the introduction and explanation of new vocabulary.

At Newker Primary School we want children to love reading. We believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers. We feel strongly that reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across a wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future studies and employment. We aim to promote and instil a love of reading by immersing our pupils in high-quality literature.  We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading and embedding it throughout the curriculum.  We aim for children to become competent and confident readers, who are able to decode and read fluently whilst developing comprehension skills to a high level.

We use the DFE validated Read, Write Inc programme in daily lessons across Reception and Year 1.  Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed.  This is achieved by a dynamic approach to teaching phonics that is consistent across the school using the Read, Write Inc phonics resources and fully decodable reading books. Each half term, children are carefully assessed and placed into a RWI group based on their phonics sound knowledge and reading skills.  Any children who are not making sufficient progress will be given targeted intervention or additional support. This compilation of rapid acceleration, streamed groupings and targeted support all helps to ensure our children are confident readers by the time they leave Year 2.   In addition to this, in EYFS, we routinely incorporate rich opportunities for children to sing songs, recite rhymes, learn poems, read familiar labels and signs; and join in with reading aloud from picture books with repeated refrains. 

All classes from Year 2 to Year 6 have whole class reading lessons.  High quality, carefully-chosen texts and passages are explored across a sequence of lessons, covering fiction, non-fiction and poetry each half-term.   Reading lessons are divided into two main sections: reading fluency and reading comprehension skills.   Fluency is supported through clear modelling, and shared, repeated reading using techniques such as echo and choral reading.  Over the course of a two-week sequence of reading lessons, children develop reading comprehension skills in vocabulary building, retrieval, inference, deduction and authorial intent.   Teachers use a range of activities to respond to texts.

Each year group has carefully chosen class texts that are explored in depth over a half-term. The class text forms the basis of the long-term English planning for each year group and provides the stimulus for writing.

From Year 2 onwards, children use the 'Accelerated Reader' programme in order to choose a book suitable for their reading ability.  This programme enables teachers to target instruction and accelerate reading growth for students of all abilities. When they have read a book, they will complete a quiz to check that they have understood it.  Pupils have a home reading record.  Pupils will have regular opportunities to changes their reading books in school. Parents, pupils and teachers will use their reading records to communicate about the pupil’s reading.

Children who use Accelerated Reader can now do their quizzes at home.

Tips for using Accelerated Reader at home

Our long-term Writing curriculum outlines key writing outcomes for fiction and non-fiction writing in each year group with clear lines of progression built in across the three terms.   English lessons are taught daily and plans have been carefully devised to suit the needs, interests and aspirations of our children.  Our class texts provide high quality models of writing and inspiring language.  In KS1, English lessons have a greater weight towards teaching and securing transcription skills. This emphasis changes towards composition as children move into KS2. Each half-term children will draft, write and edit a range of fiction and non-fiction pieces, using high quality models and modelling.  As a school, we always ensure children are familiar with the features of that particular text type and ensure they understand the purpose for writing and their audience. 

Spelling Rules are taught according to the programme of study in the National curriculum. Spelling rules are taught weekly in each year group with a focus on RWI phonic sounds in Reception and Year 1.   From Year 1 onwards spelling is taught discretely and within English lessons with the support of the Spelling Shed scheme.  Children practise their spellings through the use of online games and activities at school and home.  

A high standard of joined, cursive handwriting is modelled across school and children are encouraged to imitate this. In Reception and Year 1, children are taught to form letters correctly alongside their phonic development using Read Write Inc.  From Year 2, handwriting is taught and practised regularly across the week using Nelson Handwriting Scheme.

Writing is marked in accordance with the Newker Primary Marking Policy.  Teachers leave next steps in books through comments when marking to ensure that children know exactly what they need to do next to make progress in their writing and children are encouraged to respond to this. Assessment in writing is ongoing as teachers carry out in-depth assessment of children’s writing at the end of each term using Durham On-Track Writing Grids.

Our English curriculum puts all pupils, regardless of their needs, at the heart of what we do. Our inclusive and enriching curriculum, written for all children, provides pupils with meaningful and aspirational experiences.  When the curriculum needs adapting, to suit the needs of individual children, appropriate modifications are made by the class teacher with support of the SENCO. For any children who are not making the expected progress, daily interventions and support may be put in place in order to accelerate reading, writing and speaking skills.  The nature of the intervention will be decided by the teacher and the SENCO.

Here are some of the websites that we use in school which you may find useful to support children's learning at home. 

Accelerated Reader

Spelling Shed 

Reading Policy

Writing Policy