Bathampton Primary School
EverybodyBelongs ~ Aspires ~ Thrives
English
English Writing
At Bathampton, our curriculum is centred on our school vision and values. Our friendly and inclusive learning environment nurtures self-belief and enhances potential.
In English we are unique citizens through discussing, constructing and expressing our ideas and opinions both verbally and in writing. We listen, have empathy for, and work alongside our peers to respect and celebrate the differences we all bring. Through our diverse and inclusive reading curriculum, we learn, understand and respect differences and question, discuss and explore topics that challenge and stretch our thinking. Our writing curriculum enables children to express themselves through speech and performance as well as through their written words; we foster the uniqueness that every child brings to their writing and oral contributions through a curriculum which is adapted to the needs of the learners
Writing in the classroom: The planning and teaching of our writing lessons follow the Talk for Writing approach which immerses children in a text through oracy. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully.
The writing process involves experimentation with language and sentence structure through teacher modelling, shared writing and class discussion. Following this, children plan, write and edit; final pieces of independent writing are shared through performance reading and our class assemblies.
Throughout the year children will cover a range of genres and complete 12 pieces of independent writing. The long-term overview for the school can be found below.
Alongside this we encourage children to be curious about our language, where words come from and how they have developed. We use 'Essential Spelling' to develop children’s interest in the English language and to teach a secure understanding of spelling rules and patterns as well as the statutory words from the National Curriculum.
Key Documents
English Reading
“Reading is a passport to countless adventures” Mary Pope Osborne
Reading is celebrated and encouraged at Bathampton, and recognised as a fundamental skill for life-long learning. We embrace reading opportunities, in reading lessons and across the curriculum, with the aim that all children become confident, fluent readers.
Our classes are full of readers - we think of reading as an adventure into learning. We read class novels, have regular reading lessons, book activities such as World Book Day celebrations and author visits. We recommend books to each other and read to further our knowledge across the curriculum. Books and texts are at the heart of our curriculum.
Children at Bathampton are encouraged to find out more, with curiosity being one of our core values. The recent funding into our new library supports this as we have a rich and diverse range of reading material which all children can access, linked to topics and interests.
Our reading curriculum is carefully mapped out so that children recall links to previous learning, and progress in small steps to ambitious endpoints. We explicitly teach fluency skills which are underpinned by the Little Wandle Letters and sounds systematic synthetic phonics programme. Alongside ensuring every child is a fluent reader we teach comprehension skills and prosody through our whole class guided reading lessons.
Our school values are shown in reading every day. At Bathampton children are respectful and kind to each other in reading lessons, and listen carefully to others read and their points of view. Teamwork shines through - older children read with younger children from different classes, group work and discussion is valued, and children support each other in lessons. Children show creativity with their thinking, asking and answering questions, and wanting to find out more. In reading the children show resilience by reading a wide range of genres, and not giving up if they find something difficult. We work together to support one another when reading at our school.
Bathampton Reading Progression Map
