Developing oracy skills is a priority for all our children, as an essential tool to communicate, learn and succeed. Promoting effective speaking and listening at every opportunity, will be key to this and teachers will weave in chances for ‘Think, Pair, Share’ partner talk, discussions, feedback, drama and debate whenever possible, into their lessons and daily routines.

We believe that reading is at the heart of learning. We strive for children to learn to love books through daily reading lessons and daily adult-led storytelling sessions (R.A.T.L). Children are given a strong foundation in Phonics from the Little Wandle scheme, alongside access to a wide range of carefully chosen quality texts.

Children will read phonically matched Little Wandle books until they pass the PSC and then they will choose books from a banded system. Alongside these books, children can also choose from a wide variety of texts – for pleasure and as part of their curriculum offer. Both books are taken home to read with parents, or alone when the children have become independent readers.

Through reading lessons, children are taught the skills of inference, retrieval, prediction and interpretation. Teachers follow the Lantern Reading Cycle which includes Buddy Reading, Fluency Development, Comprehension Practice and book Talk.

Children will read daily in classrooms, either in reading lessons, one to one reading or guided reading in Early Years and Key Stage 1. Communication between staff and parents about reading is encouraged. This is done primarily through the Home/School Communication & Reading Diary. In KS1 reading is recorded by parents or teachers. In KS2, children record their own entries which are monitored by teachers or LSMs.

From KS1, teachers follow the Lantern Writing Cycle. Through this, writing is given a purpose, and children are inspired by real experiences, texts or issues so that they want to use writing as a way of communication. Children will consider the purpose, audience, and layout (PALS) of their writing before they begin so the outcomes are meaningful and effective. Often English writing topics are based on stories by well-known authors and the children are given time to immerse themselves in the story and get to know the characters and genre, in their daily reading lessons. Links across other areas of learning are also made to provide other opportunities for contextual writing.

KS1 and KS2 all have a clear writing journey which is followed for each new piece of writing. Within the Lantern Writing Cycle, grammar and punctuation is weaved into the writing units to ensure the children have the necessary knowledge and skills required for them to shape their writing. Teacher modelling is used within the ‘Warm Write’ part of the cycle to demonstrate how to structure texts and apply the grammar learnt. The cycle always ends with a ‘Hot Write’ where children apply all of their learning to produce a final piece of writing.

Spelling is taught through the Little Wandle phonics scheme and once Phase 5 has been completed in Y1, teachers use ‘Spellingframe’ as a resource to support their teaching of spelling patterns and rules. It provides a comprehensive range of activities, interactive spelling games, and spelling lessons that make the process of learning spelling rules engaging and effective.

We believe that no child should be disadvantaged through their learning needs or home circumstances. With a third of the academy recognised as having SEND, we recognise that many of our children will need additional support to achieve their potential. This comes in the form of learning plans, bespoke curriculums, targeted interventions and tailored scaffolds for writing.  Intervention is used to help close gaps but does not lead to a narrowing of other curriculum subjects.

Pupils who are risk of falling behind are identified for rapid intervention. Successful intervention is short and sharp. Little Wandle ‘Keep Up’ sessions ensure all children in Reception and Y1 at risk of falling behind in phonics, keep up. The Little Wandle ‘Rapid Catch Up’ intervention is used to close the gap for children in Y2 and KS2 who have not passed the PSC. Lexia online is used to close gaps in Reading throughout the academy.