English
English at Hady focuses on speaking and listening, phonics, reading and writing. We inspire our learners through exciting topics, high quality literature and engaging writing stimuli. We use phonics and reading as a vehicle to drive the English curriculum to ensure all our pupils learn to read fluently, develop comprehension skills, and as a hook to inspire writing.
Writing
It is our intent at Hady Primary School for children to write confidently and creatively for a range of purposes and a range of audiences, drawing on the wider curriculum, experiences and exciting books.
We intend to ensure that pupils are exposed to first-class education in English in which pupils learn to speak, read and write fluently, enabling them to communicate their ideas and thoughts effectively. Across a topic cycle, pupils are given wide ranging, meaningful opportunities to write a variety of genres to include Fiction, Non Fiction and Poetry. Please see our Autumn whole school writing overview for this academic year.
At Hady Primary School, writing is a central part of our curriculum. Children from EYFS to Year 6 receive various creative opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum.
We intend for pupils to have the ability to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. In order to achieve this successfully, pupils will focus on developing efficient transcription and composition. They will also obtain an understanding of audience, purpose and context, as well as a progressively wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. We also intend for pupils to leave Hady able to use fluent, legible and swift handwriting.
Spelling at Hady Primary School follows a system which maps out all the spelling rules and patterns from the National Curriculum. These statutory word lists, rules and patterns are taught in lively sessions and are explored in order to expand written and spoken vocabulary. Rising Stars Spelling Scheme supports a high-quality spelling curriculum, including spelling investigations and challenges. It also supports children as they progress from phonics with rigorous learning pathway that build s spelling knowledge year on year. EYFS and KS1 follow a rigorous phonics program to incorporate the teaching of segmenting and blending. All lessons make learning enjoyable and the activities provide opportunities to explore spellings in context.
Reading
At Hady reading is high profile, reading for pleasure is promoted across the school and reading for wider purposes is taught explicitly. This will enable all our children to become active readers, to apply their reading skills across the broader curriculum and to foster a lifelong love of reading
It is our intent with regards to Reading, phonics will be prominent in the early teaching of reading to beginners when they start school.
We intend to inspire all pupils to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction and poetry to develop their knowledge of the world , create an appreciation and enjoyment of reading, to gain learning across the curriculum and extend their comprehension skills. It is our intention to ensure that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently, and confidence, in any subject.
We use the 6R framework to support the teaching of English, encouraging exemplary learning behaviours as we know these are the key to progress. We aim to equip all learners with an English education that provides a solid foundation for the next stage in their education. We offer a range of enhancement activities throughout the year which all feed into the English curriculum, these include day trips, author visits, travelling theatre companies, book fairs, bed-time story nights and much more. Furthermore, our Rising Star reading scheme and school library books ensure that every child is able to access high-quality texts which is challenging, exciting and vocabulary rich, whilst still being at a suitable reading level.
Bug Club is an online reading scheme, which ensures children have access to a varied and rich reading experience. What’s more, there is a personalised website for each child. Using the online reading world. Our online phonics scheme “ Phonics Bug Club” also allows us to allocate “E- Books” to children in Reception and Key Stage 1 which can be accessed on any internet enabled device. These books are fully decodable. Parents can also monitor how their children are progressing through their children’s online portal in “Bug Club”.
Phonics - Nursery Progression Map
Reading Books
At Hady, all children take home a Rising Stars reading book. We have complete hard copy sets of all the books in the Rising Stars “Reading rockets” set. These books are fully decodable. As children progress through the reading levels, they receive certificates to acknowledge their progress and mark the milestone.
Our pupil Reading Ambassadors, selected from across the school, celebrate and share their love of reading with their peers. They are pictured here with our new reading wall - September 2022
Poetry
At Hady we embrace poetry. Children are given wide ranging opportunities to read, write and recite poetry each term. Reading poetry helps children about voice, pitch, volume, and inflection. While these are mainly functions of speech, they’re also incredibly important for children learning to read. Poetry can teach young readers about speech patterns, which can give them cues to the words on a page. Improved writing, performing and expression are benefits of creating poetry. It also helps develop rhythm and enhances memory. Reciting poems from memory promotes reading, vocabulary and communication skills. It fosters empathy and allows the poets to connect emotionally with their audience.
Here are the poems for this cycle:
Handwriting
At Hady we believe in the importance of clear and neat presentation in order to communicate effectively. It is our intent that pupils should be able to write legibly in firstly printed and later continuous cursive styles with increasing fluency and speed. We aim for all pupils to have the correct pencil group, know where to start forming letters and to be able to form both upper and lower case letters correctly. We also aim for pupils to know the size and orientation of letters and for this to be reflected in their writing. Handwriting, as in many other skills develops at different rates, so it is important to maintain handwriting sessions throughout the school consistently and all staff have a clear understanding of the progression of skills and can remedy errors efficiently. Our aim is for children to develop legible, fluent, efficient handwriting.
