English at Sawley Junior School

OFSTED Inspection February 2023

'Leaders prioritise reading. They make sure that pupils are exposed to a wide range of different texts. Pupils enjoy choosing books at the library. They are pleased when they make progress with their reading. Pupils enjoy the annual ‘Wordsmith week’ when authors visit the school. Pupils who are at the early stages of learning to read get help to catch up. Leaders use assessment well to ensure that teaching focuses on what pupils need to learn next. They make sure that books match the sounds that pupils are learning.'

Intent

What do we want SJS children to learn?

At Sawley Junior School we support all of our pupils to be capable readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other subjects and who are prepared for the next steps in their learning. We nurture them as eloquent and articulate speakers and writers, who learn and use a wide and purposeful vocabulary. Our intent for the teaching and learning of English is to motivate, support and challenge the pupils, to engage them into a love for reading, writing and discussions.

We follow the National Curriculum 2014 for English and strive to provide our children with high quality, responsive English lessons. We adapt our teaching to meet the needs of all learners and ensure they are fluent in the fundamentals of English. We believe that a secure basis in English skills is crucial to ensure success within and beyond the curriculum. We want to prepare our learners for life as successful, valuable and socially responsible citizens with high aspirations.

At Sawley Junior, reading is a leading priority. We strive to teach our children to learn to read as quickly as possible for we know just how vital the skill of reading is, and we aim to inspire our children to develop a passion for books and a deep love of reading.  We know that reading opens up new worlds. Books and reading are at the heart of everything we do. Reading materials are built upon quality picture books, stimulating novels and non-fiction texts.

We nurture a culture where children take pride in their writing; can write clearly, imaginatively and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We inspire children to be confident with speaking and listening, by prioritising discussion as part of our classroom practise.

We are passionate about enrichment of the English curriculum:  in order that our children can experience the positive impact it can have on their lives now and in their futures. We promote and challenge pupils’ aspirations to succeed:

• Wilmot’s Wordsmith Week is annual event with a different focus each year supported by visiting authors – the focus always centres on reading/writing and provides the children with role models to which they might aspire.
  • In 2025, visiting authors were chosen due to their approach to writing about mystery.
• We provide opportunities for children to engage with opportunities for purposeful speaking and listening: school choral speaking event, class assemblies, performances, debate opportunities, representation in the school council communications team etc.
• All classes read for pleasure with the class teacher.

Implementation

Reading

In all year groups, fluency, accuracy, and automaticity are given high priority. In daily lessons, pupils benefit from hearing their teachers read, as good role models, with the aim of mirroring the same, pace, accuracy and expression that makes reading accessible and therefore enjoyable. As a result of exposure to high-quality texts that are carefully chosen, children experience and enjoy a wide range of stories and non-fiction that challenge and inspire them.

Daily reading lessons are centred around the following principles:

• Explicit teaching of new vocabulary: Prior to each lesson, vocabulary that is pivotal to understanding the text is selected and then the meaning and pronunciation of these words are taught at the beginning of each lesson.

• Modelled expressive reading: by the teacher who is the expert.

• A range of strategies to practise fluent reading, including:

 - Echo reading: Pupils echo what has been read by the teacher.

 - Choral reading: All pupils follow the lead of the teacher and read in unison.

 - Paired reading: Pupils practise reading sentences or paragraphs whilst the other listens.

 - Independent reading: Children read an increasing amount of text as they become more fluent.

• Repeated re-reading: Pupils become experts at reading the same passage of text, thereby gaining a secure mental model of what good reading sounds like and understanding that this is sometimes necessary to fully comprehend the text.

• Skilled questioning: Teachers plan questions, and opportunities for discussion, at key points within the text to support and expand the children’s understanding of what is being read – these questions and discussions draw on a range of relevant reading skills such as inference, prediction, summarising etc. Teachers take the opportunity to support pupils whose existing background knowledge does not yet allow them to access the content.

• Challenging texts: The selection of challenging texts enables children to have high aspirations in reading by bridging the gap between what they already know and understand and what they can potentially achieve.

• Modelling comprehension skills: Teachers explicitly model the internal narrative process (asking questions, making comments, and linking ideas) that established readers use as they unpick the meaning and content of new texts.

Accelerated Reader is used to promote reading for enjoyment and encourages children to read books matched closely to their phonetic skills and reading stage. We work in partnership with parents to support regular reading at home and keep parents informed of their child’s reading progress. Star Reading tests and phonics screening takes place each half term, to ensure reading levels and phonics groups are fluid. In addition to this, the children complete summative assessments each year, these help the teacher make judgements about a child’s reading ability and enable the tracking of progress.

Classrooms have interactive reading displays to motivate children to read regularly at home.

These support children on the journey from reading to writing. Within our timetable, we are committed to providing:

• An immersive reading culture
• Guided / independent reading
• The sharing of a class book
• Comprehension activities
• Targeted phonics intervention for identified pupils
• Enrichment activities – e.g. Wilmot’s Wordsmith Week, competitions, book fairs

Writing

Children are clear about their writing targets, which can be identified at the front of their books. Each year group’s skills are progressive and build upon the previous year.

Each year group has a set of non-negotiable targets, which pupils are expected to apply across the wider curriculum. Within English lessons, these maybe supported by additional steps to success, which provides appropriate challenge for all learners and encourages children to be independent writers.

The English genres covered throughout the year groups embed knowledge through repetition and progression of skills, every year group is clear about the progression in genres so that it is clear how the skills build year upon year.

OWL (Open Write Learning) Writes were implemented in 2023 throughout the school to improve writing levels. Each class completes an OWL write every second week. The children get a writing stimulus, such as a picture, object or video to write about. During the input, children have the opportunity to discuss ideas with their class or peer, creating word banks together and a WAGOLL. Children write a creative paragraph independently to build stamina and engagement with writing. Through teacher discussions, pupil interviews and book looks these have proven to be working well across the school and the children comment that it is one of their favourite lessons. At the end of every half term there is an OWL write competition, and the winner from each year group gets their work put on display at the front of school.

Handwriting

At Sawley Junior School, we believe that developing clear, legible, and fluent handwriting is an essential skill that supports children in their overall literacy development. We follow the Letter Join Handwriting Scheme, which provides a structured and consistent approach to teaching handwriting across all year groups. Our aim is to equip children with the skills needed to write confidently and legibly in all areas of the curriculum.

Objective

Handwriting is a basic skill that influences the quality and quantity of written work throughout the curriculum. By the end of Key Stage 2 all pupils should have the ability to produce fluent, legible, joined-up handwriting, and to understand the different forms of handwriting used for different purposes. Our intention is to make handwriting an automatic process that does not interfere with creative and mental thinking.

Aims:

•To build fine and gross motor skills needed to develop early letter formation in a fun and engaging way.

•To develop a neat, legible, handwriting style using continuous cursive letters, which leads to producing letters and words automatically in independent writing.

•To establish and maintain high expectations for the presentation of written work.

•For pupils to understand, by the end of Year 6, the importance of neat presentation and the need for different letterforms (cursive, printed or capital letters) to help communicate meaning clearly.

Pens and pencils

Children will start handwriting using a soft pencil. When fine motor skills have been established and children have been taught how to join all letter families, a pen license will be awarded and the child will move to writing in pen.

Inclusion

For children who experience handwriting difficulties due to fine motor development, including those who are left-handed or those with special educational needs, the appropriate additional support will be put into place.

How is handwriting taught at Sawley?

At Sawley we use Letter Join to teach handwriting. Letter-join is a whole school handwriting scheme offering a combination of traditional and digital resources. These include interactive animations, handwriting activities, lesson planners and independent work resources. 

Key Stage Two – What do we cover?

• Improving the quality, speed and stamina of handwriting. 
• Quality: Ensure letters are consistently sized with equal word spacing and that ascenders and descenders are parallel and do not touch words on the lines above and below. 
• Speed: Improve speed of handwriting to take precedence over the task of handwriting and be able to take ‘quick notes’ at a faster pace. 
• Stamina: have the strength and mobility to be able to write for longer periods of time without fatigue. 
• Have full knowledge and ability of the different forms of handwriting for different purposes: 
• Neat, joined, cursive letters for writing passages and large amounts of text, lists and letters. 
• Printed or capital letters for posters, notices, headings, labelling and form filling. 
• Speedy handwriting for note-taking and dictation where neatness is not as important and shortcuts, such as + instead of ‘and’ can be used. 

Short lessons are delivered three times a week, with plenty of opportunity for children to practise their handwriting skills during these sessions.

SPaG

Children are clear about their SPaG targets, which can be identified at the front of their books. Each year group’s skills are progressive and build upon the previous year.

Teachers adapt learning appropriately to meet all of the children’s needs. Teacher’s group children due to ability for spelling and phonics, so that they have appropriate spellings and are taught a spelling pattern or rule. Phonics screening takes place each half term, to ensure phonics groups are fluid.

Spelling

Spelling lessons are taught 3 times a week using an online scheme called ‘Spelling Shed’. The scheme revisits previous spellings and includes sections on the etymology and morphology of words to help children develop strategies to learn to spell those words. Every child in school has access to an online Spelling shed account which also allows the children to practise the spellings in a fun, interactive way. We then test the children on their spellings once per week.