What we teach
Strong foundations in speaking, listening, reading and writing are at the heart of the English curriculum at Uplands Infant School. Through a language-rich environment and carefully planned teaching, we aim to develop confident communicators, fluent readers and enthusiastic writers who are well prepared for the next stage of their education.
An appreciation for rich, high-quality literature underpins our curriculum. Carefully selected texts expose children to a wide range of authors, vocabulary, cultures and experiences while developing their understanding of how language and texts are structured. The curriculum is thoughtfully sequenced to progressively build children’s phonic knowledge, comprehension, vocabulary and writing skills.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, children begin their literacy journey through strong foundations in communication, storytelling, phonics and early reading. In Years 1 and 2, the National Curriculum objectives are delivered through high-quality texts that inspire reading and writing for a range of purposes.
By the end of Key Stage 1, pupils will have developed the essential knowledge and skills needed to become confident readers and writers, alongside a love of reading that supports both academic success and lifelong learning.
How we teach it
The teaching of English encompasses reading, writing, spelling, handwriting, and speaking and listening. English is taught daily throughout the school.
The English curriculum at Uplands Infant School is designed to deliver the National Curriculum objectives for reading, writing, spelling and grammar, and speaking and listening through high-quality core texts. Clear progression maps identify the knowledge and skills to be taught in each year group and are broken down into small-step objectives which inform unit planning.
In Years 1 and 2, English is taught through carefully sequenced text-based units. Each unit identifies the specific reading, writing, spelling and grammar objectives, key vocabulary and intended outcomes, while building on prior learning and developing children’s understanding of context and language.
Strong foundations in communication and language are prioritised from the Early Years through to Key Stage 1. A high focus on oracy supports both learning to talk and learning through talk, with planned opportunities for discussion, questioning and performance helping children to become confident communicators, readers and writers.
All children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception) and Key Stage One (Years One and Two) have daily phonics sessions. Phonics is a crucial part of the early stages of learning to read, as we believe it lays the foundations for successful reading, while also giving children the confidence to become independent readers and writers.
We use ALS Phonics, which is a systematic, synthetic phonics programme. This approach provides structure and routine and begins as soon as the children start school. Our early reading books are phonetically decodable and are organised according to the phases and grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) covered within them. Teachers ensure that children practise reading with books that are fully decodable for their stage of learning. Our home reading books closely match the children’s phonic knowledge, enabling them to continue practising at home the learning that has taken place in school.
In addition to this, children choose another book to take home from the school or classroom library. This book may often be at a reading level above that of the child. Its purpose is to be a ‘read aloud’ text, where parents are encouraged to read to their child in order to promote a deeper enjoyment of reading, while also introducing new vocabulary and a wider range of genres.
As part of the Literacy curriculum, children take part in weekly guided reading sessions. These sessions help to develop reading fluency and are carefully planned to support children’s comprehension and understanding of both fiction and non-fiction texts. There are also opportunities each week for children to read individually.
At Uplands Infant School, we aim to teach writing through a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres, in line with the National Curriculum. Writing is taught through the use of high-quality texts, which expose children to ambitious vocabulary, inference, varied punctuation, and characterisation. Each text is purposefully selected to promote a love of reading, engagement, and high-quality writing outcomes. Class discussions and Talk for Writing activities further support and enrich the children’s own writing skills.
What pupils have learnt
By the end of Key Stage 1, pupils at Uplands Infant School will have developed strong foundations in speaking, listening, reading and writing. Children will be confident communicators who can express themselves clearly, use a growing vocabulary and take part positively in discussion and learning.
Pupils will become fluent readers with a love of reading and will experience a wide range of high-quality texts that develop their comprehension, vocabulary and understanding of the world. Through carefully sequenced teaching, children will learn to write confidently for different purposes, applying their phonics, spelling, grammar and punctuation knowledge with increasing independence.
The impact of the curriculum is monitored through regular book scrutinies, assessments and the tracking of reading progress. The Symphony Assessment System is used to track reading and writing, while phonics progress is carefully assessed from Nursery onwards through the ALS assessments and progression through the phonic phases. These systems help teachers identify strengths and gaps in learning and ensure all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with Special Educational Needs, make good progress.
Children are assessed against the Early Learning Goals at the end of Reception, complete the statutory Phonics Screening Check in Year 1 and are assessed against the Teacher Assessment Framework for reading and writing at the end of Key Stage 1. The impact of the curriculum is reflected in children’s enthusiasm for English, their readiness for the next stage of education and their ability to communicate effectively through speaking, reading and writing.
Early Reading
At Uplands Infant School, we value reading as a key skill and it is our priority to deliver a quality reading curriculum that engages, inspires and motivates children to develop a love of reading. Our aim is for children to become enthusiastic, successful, fluent readers who know a wealth of stories so they are able to join in with repeated refrains, retell stories and enthuse about stories. We want children to know that reading allows them to discover new knowledge, revisit prior knowledge and understand more about what they want to learn about, as well as fuelling their own imagination. We want them to have favourite books and authors, as well as developing a passion and curiosity for books.
Here at Uplands Infant School, the structure of the reading curriculum across the school shows clear progression. There is a strong, whole school approach to the teaching of synthetic phonics. Phonics is taught daily and allows key phonic skills to be visited regularly, allowing repetition to embed learning. We also focus on teaching both word recognition and language comprehension through shared and guided reading. We understand that it is the careful weaving of all these skills, which makes a successful, fluent reader. We aim to equip our children with the reading skills needed to successfully access a wide variety of texts and genres.
We aim to ensure that reading is at the heart of our curriculum, inspiring and motivating children to read for pleasure. We are fully aware of the opportunities that reading offers to pupils and we want them to have every chance of being successful in later life. Reading opens doors to knowledge and opportunity, enabling children to explore, understand and engage with the world around them while igniting their imagination.
Early reading is prioritised at our school and is underpinned by a coherent and systematic, synthetic phonics programme called ALS Phonics. Phonics is taught daily in Nursery, Reception and Key Stage One and this approach works on segmenting and blending spoken words into phonemes and representing these by graphemes. Teachers follow the structure of Review(previously learnt phonemes), Teach (new phoneme), Practise (new learning) and Apply (new learning), across the week focusing on reading and writing. This systematic and synthetic approach to early reading ensures children learn first to orally blend and then progress to developing GPC (grapheme phoneme correspondence), by blending the sounds they encounter within a word. This new knowledge is applied to reading phrases and sentences. Phonics is taught daily and is followed with rigor and fidelity by all teachers following a shared format and language script.
It is our aim to secure phase three and four in the Foundation Stage and phase five in Year one. The teachers draw upon observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are supported and challenged. Any children who are not keeping up with the pace of the phonics programme may need additional support and they are identified and given additional phonics teaching as an intervention, filling any gaps in knowledge and understanding. Any children in year 2, who do not pass the phonics screening check, continue to receive phonic sessions as well as a phonic intervention.
As part of the Literacy curriculum, the children take part in weekly guided reading sessions. These sessions allow children to develop their reading and fluency. In the early stages, the children read phonetically decodable books, which allows them to apply and contextualise their phonic knowledge using books closely linked to their phonic phase. Regular phonics assessments plus tracking information ensures children are reading at the right level, which support them in moving forwards. As the children’s reading develops further and they become more fluent and less reliant on blending and segmenting to read, the guided reading sessions focus more on developing the children’s comprehension and understanding of fiction and nonfiction texts. To ensure that learning is embedded, the children have many other reading opportunities each week, such as whole class reading using big books, shared reading and one to one reading, where the children read individually to an adult in school.
We encourage parents and carers engagement in their children’s learning and the creation of a positive learning environment at home. Parents and carers are given reading guidance and clear expectations about reading at home during parent’s evenings. The children are encouraged to read at home and those children at the early stages of reading take home phonetically decodable reading books that closely match their phonic knowledge. This allows our children to keep practising at home the learning that has taken place at school. In addition to this, the children choose another book to take home from the school or classroom library. This book may often be at a reading level above that of the child. Its purpose is to be a ‘read aloud’ text, in which parents are encouraged to read it to their child, in order to promote a deeper enjoyment of reading, as well as introducing them to new vocabulary and genres of writing.
Our staff are positive role models for the children, reading aloud and sharing books with enthusiasm with the children daily, as well as giving them opportunities to read for themselves and set in place positive reading habits to last a lifetime. We are also involved in a number of reading initiatives such as Local Library visits, storyteller visits and taking part in World Book Day, all of which are designed to encourage a love of books and reading. We continually strive to build upon the excellent understanding of the expectations of the curriculum that our staff have. All staff are encouraged to raise questions, seek support and request further training if needed in order to ensure everyone is confident in what they teach. Good practice is always shared between staff and all CPD is used to inform teaching and learning across school.
By the end of Key Stage 1, most children are fluent, confident readers who have a good level of comprehension. Children have embedded the strategies of decoding for reading and can use their reading skills across the curriculum, as well as using them to aid their learning in other subjects. Our children have a genuine enthusiasm and enjoyment for reading. They enjoy sharing books with their peers and are excited when new books are read to them and then put in their reading areas for them to read for themselves. The children are passionate about reading and have developed lifelong skills that will help them through the next stage of their education and beyond into their adult life.
Regular formative assessments in reading and phonics are used to check progress for each pupil and identify gaps in learning. Teachers use these assessments to make termly judgements for each pupil against year group expectations and this information is discussed at pupil progress meetings, alongside updates on intervention groups. At the end of each year, we expect the majority of children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). Ongoing assessment ensures that children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention. We draw on a number of intervention strategies that best fit the needs of the individual. These range from small, focused ‘catch up’ phonic groups to extra 1:1 individual reading to specific language based intervention programs to support early language development, such as BRP Better reading Partnership) and TRUGS Teaching Children to read Using Games. We have a process of monitoring the teaching and learning, to ensure high standards are being met, good progress is being made, and this includes, observations, learning walks, listening to readers across the school, pupil voice, performance management and pupil progress meetings.
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Writing
Our aim at Uplands Infant school is to help children develop into articulate and imaginative communicators, who are well-equipped with the foundation skills they need to be successful writers.
Through their learning journey, children learn to write for a range of purposes and a range of audiences. In both EYFS and KS1, we help to develop the children’s oracy and spoken language so that they have the vocabulary and grammar skills orally before they begin to write. It is our intention that children write with increasing grammatical accuracy and punctuation and that they apply their phonic knowledge when spelling. We also place a strong emphasis on developing fine motor skills, correct pencil grip and accurate letter formation, ensuring that children build the foundations for fluent, legible handwriting. We expose children to a wide range of vocabulary so they have an increasing bank of words and they are able to use this vocabulary when writing. Children are encouraged to always take pride in their writing too. All children are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum.
The EYFS Framework is used to inform the planning and delivery of writing for the children in the EYFS. In the initial stages of EYFS, children are encouraged to mark make and give meaning to those marks that they make. Children work with teachers and support staff to develop their gross and fine motor skills which are the crucial foundation blocks to writing. Then in the Reception classes, when the children begin to learn grapheme phoneme correspondence, they are taught the correct letter formations. As the year progresses, children use the phonics which they have learnt to write words and sentences and they are supported with their writing by the teacher, in a small guided group. As well as this, the children are encouraged to write independently and practice these new skills in their play, throughout the continuous provision on offer in their classroom.
In Key Stage 1 the National Curriculum is used to inform the planning and delivery of the writing curriculum. Writing is taught explicitly in daily literacy lessons supported by a clear skills and knowledge progression. This ensures that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning and progression for all children.
We provide children with the necessary literacy tools to be able to write a range of text types with clarity and engagement for the reader. Our literacy lessons are taught through the use of high quality texts, which the children explore and use to inspire them for their own writing. As well as writing inspiration, the chosen text provides a wealth of reading, drama, and speaking and listening opportunities. Other writing opportunities are closely linked to first hand experiences such as visits, visitors, celebrations and events. Teachers model the process of writing within every literacy unit so that children understand the thought process behind writing. During this process, teachers think out loud, edit and demonstrate how and why they have structured their writing in the way that they have. Within a lesson, the teacher will build up the writing with the children through a modelled or shared piece of writing and use this to address specific focuses. Grammar, punctuation and spelling strategies (including phonics) are both discreetly taught and interwoven into the children’s learning. The children are then given the opportunity to write themselves, whether this is with the teacher, in a small guided group or working independently. The children have access to a number of useful writing resources, such as, sound mats and high frequency word mats when they are writing. These resources enable the children to access the scaffolds they need to write confidently and with accuracy. Handwriting is taught explicitly and there are high expectations for handwriting and presentation in children’s books. The spelling of ‘Common Exception Words’ is taught outside of literacy lessons. Children are encouraged to look for the ‘tricky’ part of the word and this is highlighted with them to discuss. Ongoing assessments and dialogues with children take place daily in the classroom as the children are completing their work. These inform teachers of pupils’ next steps and successes and help them to inform their future planning. Interventions on specific areas of weakness and areas to improve upon happen during feedback in lessons to the children.
By the end of Key Stage 1, the children are confident, independent writers who enjoy writing and creating pieces of work that they delight in talking about and sharing with others. Children are able to apply their writing skills, enabling them to write to a good standard across all areas of the curriculum. The children are able to write for a variety of purposes.
Attainment in writing is measured consistently throughout the year. At the three assessment checkpoints, progress is tracked using Progression statements which have been taken from the National Curriculum. At the end of each year we expect the majority of children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). Ongoing assessment ensures that children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate support and intervention. Moderation of children’s writing takes place within year groups to quality assure judgements made. These are either in house, or as part of a triad of local schools. At the end of Key Stage 1, the teachers in Year 2 assess a selection of pieces of writing, using this to inform reported Teacher assessment judgements. Exemplification materials are also used to support judgements.
Monitoring of the teaching and learning of writing takes place using lesson observations, work scrutinies, professional dialogue and pupil interviews. Where areas for development are identified, a support structure is put in place that include subject leader support with planning, creating appropriate resources and team teaching. Areas for CPD are identified during the monitoring process too.
Children move on from us well prepared for the next stage in their learning.
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Nursery - In Class Learning
Reading in Nursery
We love to read in the Nursery. Here are a selection of photographs showing children reading in different situations. The children enjoy choosing their favourite books and returning to familiar stories. They use their knowledge of story language to retell them alone and in small groups. They comment on the pictures, turn pages in order and talk about what they notice.
The children have many opportunities to listen and respond to adults reading where they are encouraged to join in with words and actions, changing voices for different characters and reading with expression. Here in Nursery we begin the daily habit of reading that we all look forward to. Stories come alive and children begin to understand the joy that reading brings.
Reading outside in the cosy reading shed. A shared experience and an exciting book that holds the children’s interests and develops their imagination.
Stories used in play, children listening to each other, retelling the story and the magic of listening to a story while colouring or drawing- sharing experiences and a sense of togetherness.
Stories in the home corner. More shared experiences and the comfort of a wonderful story reheard often. Children join in with enthusiasm changing their voices to match different story characters.
Reading to the soft toys. Taking time to choose just the right book to read. Side by side absorbed in a favourite story.
Sharing a familiar story and role playing too. Showing that they are beginning to understand how books work by mimicking the book reading from teacher led sessions they look at the front cover together, turn the pages in order and retell the story together. The children became the animals as they were read to- sound effects and all- picture 3 shows them being the hissing snakes and later, the children ran away quickly when the crocodile was snapping at them in this retelling of Where’s Spot? What a wonderful shared experience!