English, Phonics & Reading
English at St Pancras
"It seemed fitting to me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in an orderly sequence." Luke 1:3
Intent:
At St Pancras, our English curriculum is driven by the use of high quality model texts following the Cusp reading and writing curriculum. Our model text is supplemented by additional high quality books that the children have access to in our reading areas. We ensure that the children are able to study a range of text types throughout the year and that these text types are revisited. By immersing the children in quality texts, they are able to explore the sophisticated vocabulary used and produce their own pieces of quality writing. We ensure the children are taught specific SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) skills that are required for the text type studied.
We aim to develop the children’s speaking and listening skills through a wide range of teaching strategies and actively encourage them to become effective communicators. We promote the use of explicitly taught vocabulary to aid their communication, both spoken and written. and we recognise that speaking, listening and reading is of as equal importance as writing. We strive to teach the children to speak and write fluently so they can communicate their ideas creatively to others and through reading and listening, others can communicate with them.
We are passionate about children becoming life-long readers and strive to develop a love of reading by sharing books daily with the children. We use the Cusp Core Literature Spine in our reading lessons and have supplemented it with other high quality books to ensure there is breadth and range and that it is both diverse and inclusive. The children are taught specific reading skills in their reading lessons to enable them to access texts across the whole curriculum and further enhance their love of reading.
Intent:
Using Cusp reading and writing to teach our English curriculum, we make sure that we promote the use of sophisticated vocabulary used within the texts, displaying it in the classroom and encourage its use both verbally and in written form. Modelling and studying the use of high quality vocabulary enables the children to become better readers and writers. Displaying and reading other quality books linked to the original text will also support this.
Our writing curriculum has been carefully planned to ensure each text type is revisited throughout the year therefore giving the children many opportunities to reinforce and further develop what has been previously taught. Re-visiting the text types also enables the children to consolidate the relevant SPaG skills taught. We use quality model examples to support their editing skills and improve their written work.
Our reading lessons focus on a particular reading skill. For the early Phonic reading lessons, we focus on decoding, prosody and comprehension ensuring a range of questions are being asked. In addition to this, from Year 1 onwards, the children have whole class reading lessons where we ensure that the children are taught a specific reading skill – retrieval, inference, summarising, language, predicting, authorial intent, and again use a range of questions to enable the skills to be practised and embedded.
Any child, who is not making the expected progress, are assessed using the Little Wandle placement assessment first to determine whether phonics is an issue. If so, then daily interventions are timetabled to enable them to catch-up. Any other needs, the SENDCo will be informed and the appropriate assessments and interventions put in place.
Reading is cross-curricular so we give the children plenty of opportunities in other areas of the curriculum to practise their reading skills.
To further develop the children’s speaking and listening skills, they take part in a range of activities. These include performances, class and whole school masses, liturgies, assemblies, school council, Mini Vinnies and anti-bullying ambassadors. The activities are planned and delivered by the children, supported by staff, which develops both their collaborative skills and their speaking and listening skills.
Implementation:
Using the high quality text as the basis of our English curriculum, we make sure that we promote the use of sophisticated vocabulary used within the texts, displaying it in the classroom and encourage its use both verbally and in written form. Modelling and studying the use of high quality vocabulary enables the children to become better readers and writers. Displaying and reading other quality books linked to the original text will also support this.
Our writing curriculum has been carefully planned to ensure each text type is revisited throughout the year therefore giving the children many opportunities to reinforce and further develop what has been previously taught. Re-visiting the text types also enables the children to consolidate the relevant SPaG skills taught. We use quality model examples to support their editing skills and improve their written work.
Our reading lessons focus on a particular reading skill. For the early reading lessons, we focus on decoding, prosody and comprehension ensuring a range of questions are being asked. As the children progress through the school, we ensure that the children are taught a specific reading skill – retrieval, inference, summarising, language, predicting, authorial intent, and again use a range of questions to enable the skills to be practised and embedded. Reading is cross-curricular so we give the children plenty of opportunities in other areas of the curriculum to practise their reading skills.
To further develop the children’s speaking and listening skills, they take part in a range of activities. These include performances, class and whole school masses, liturgies, assemblies, Mini Vinnies, fundraising council, road safety council, anti-bullying ambassadors. The activities are planned and delivered by the children, supported by staff, which develops both their collaborative skills and their speaking and listening skills.
Impact:
The children will make good progress from their starting points, with a significant number leaving having achieved at least expected standard. They will have the knowledge and skills to write for a range of purposes and audience and know that these skills can be transferred to any piece of writing in any subject. The children enjoy writing and can respond to feedback from both peers and teachers. Every half term, teachers will assess at least one piece of writing against the National Curriculum expected standards and use this to inform progress, plan future lessons and interventions.
Children will read a wide range of books and extracts and develop a love of reading. They will enjoy listening to adults read and success in reading will be celebrated each week in the celebration assembly and in the newsletter. Impact on reading can be measured by children accessing Accelerated Reader to complete quizzes on a reading book and through Y2-6 Reading Assessment data from PiXL. Reading speed tests from PiXL are also used to monitor and inform interventions for children.
The English Subject Lead will monitor the children’s work and the quality of teaching in English. This will ensure that there is consistency across the school and that improvements are made. This will also inform any CPD that is needed.
Core Literature Spine
As a school, we use the Cusp Core Literature Spine and have supplemented it using the CLPE core books list as a basis. We have carefully selected a range of books, chosen not only because they are quality books, poems and extracts but because they also promote cultural capital, diversity, inclusiveness and develop the children’s knowledge of the world. We have ensured that there is a strong female voice present and that a range of heritage texts are also read.
We want reading to become part of the children’s daily lives and strive to develop a love of reading in them by offering high quality books at every opportunity. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, in fact, it is a starting point. But this is our promise to the children of St Pancras, that these are just some of the books that will be studied in their English lessons, read for pleasure and have re-read to them throughout their years here with us.
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Autumn 1 |
Autumn 2 |
Spring 1 |
Spring 2 |
Summer 1 |
Summer 2 |
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Rainbows |
Here We Are Seasons I am too Absolutely Small for School Owl Babies Little Bear Lost Goldilocks and the Three Bears Where’s My Teddy? Ruby’s Worry Peepbo A Great Big Cuddle (poetry) The Gingerbread Man Goldilocks and the Three Bears The Tiger Child |
Rosie’s Walk The Gruffalo Stick Man Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy and Hairy Maclary’s Bone Naughty Bus Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk Mr Gumpy’s Motor Car |
Caroline’s Comets Look Up Astro Girl How the Stars came to be |
The Tiny Seed Jack and the Beanstalk The Enormous Turnip Baba Yaga Bloom |
Zog and the Flying Doctors The Queen’s Hat Rupunzel The princess and the pea
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St George and the Dragon The hare and the tortoise Little red riding hood
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Year 1 |
Beegu Where the wild things are |
The Storm Whale The Owl and the Pussy Cat Aesop’s Fables – The boy who cried wolf |
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Look Up!
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Here We Are Chocolate Cake – Michael Rosen |
There’s a Rangtan in my bedroom And Tango Makes Three
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The Lion Within Aesop’s Fables – The Hare and the Tortoise The Proudest Blue |
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The snail and the whale – Julia Donaldson Traction Man – Mini Grey Dear Greenpeace – Simon James The secret sky garden – Linda Sarah and Fiona Lumbers I am whole – Shola Oz Through the eyes of me – Jon Roberts An engineer like me - Dr Shini Somara Out and About – Shirley Hughes The Puffin Book of First Poems edited by June Crebbin One day on our blue planet - Ella Bailey |
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Year 2 |
The goose that laid the golden egg’s- Aesop’s Fabel Grandad’s Island Mrs Noah’s pockets |
Paddington The Christmas Pine
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The Quangle Wangle’s hat Coming to England The street beneath my feet
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The rhythm of the rain Little people, big dreams- David Attenborough
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Fantastically Great Women who changed the world The sun and the wind- Aesop’s Fable
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Fantastic Mr Fox
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George’s Marvellous medicine- Roald Dahl Man on the Moon- Simon Bartram Diary of a killer cat- Anne Fine The Hodgeheg- Dick King Smith (PSHE- road safety) The Christmasaurus- Tom Fletcher The Enchanted Wood- Enid Blyton The Boy who grew dragons- Andy Shepherd Ten things I can do to help my World- Melanie Walsh (PSHE- environmental awareness) Anna Hibiscus- Atinuke (linked to Africa) Grace and family- Mary Hoffman/Caroline Binch (linked to Africa) Jamela’s dress- Niki Daly (linked to Africa) |
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Year 3 |
Greta and the Giants Pebble in my Pocket
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Leon and the Place Between ‘Twas the Night before Christmas Anon |
Sam Wu is Not Afraid of the Dark My Shadow Robert Louis Stephenson |
Operation Gadgetman
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Dancing Bear
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The Magician’s Nephew
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Leon and the place between by Angela McAllister Iron man by Ted Hughes This Is Our World: From Alaska to the Amazon by Tracey Turner Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw The color of home by Mary Hoffman The great Kapok tree by Lynne Cherry A river by Marc Martin Malala's Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai Hot like fire by Valerie Bloom Greta Thunberg – Little people big dreams THE VIKINGS Raiders, traders and adventurers by Marcia Williams Duel of the Scrapbots (poem) |
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Year 4 |
The Queen’s Nose The Boy at the back of the class
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The Raven – Edgar Allen Poe |
Young, Gifted and Black Caged Bird - Maya Angelou
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Wind in the Willows The Walrus and the Carpenter – Lewis Carroll
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Varjak Paw
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The girl who stole an elephant The Jabberwocky – Lewis Carroll
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Belonging Jeannie Baker Beowulf: Version: Michael Morpurgo Aesop’s Fables Michael Rosen Charlotte’s Webb E.B. White Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren The Vanishing Rainforest Author: Richard Platt 13 British Artists Children Should Know Alison Baverstock Little People Big Dreams Mother Teresa: Isabel Sanchez Vegara Poetry Pie by Roger McGough One Plastic Bag Miranda Paul A Bear Called Paddington Michael Bond Tooth By Tooth: Comparing Fangs, Tusks and Chompers by Sara C Levine |
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Year 5 |
Shackleton’s Journey
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Secrets of a Sun King If – Rudyard Kipling |
A midsummer night’s dream I am not a label
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The Boy in the Tower Daffodils – William Wordsworth |
The Explorer |
Five Children and It
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Cosmic by Frank Cotterll-Boyce Good Night Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian Wolf Brother by Micelle Paver Mr William Shakespeare's plays by Marcia Williams Speak up! by Adora Svitak The Journey by Francesca Sanna Who are refugees and migrants? What makes people leave their homes? and other big questions by Michael Rosen and Annemarie Young Coming to England by Floella Benjamin How to be extra-ordinary by Rashmi Sirdeshpande The lost words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris |
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Year 6 |
Roof toppers The Listeners – Walter de la Mare
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Skellig A Carol from Flanders – Frederick Niven |
Pig Heart Boy How to Live Forever All Aboard the Empire Windrush The Island |
Intro to Dickens – Oliver Twist
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Dare to be You (KS2 – KS3 transition) Shakespeare’s Sonnets: – Sonnet 27 |
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The nowhere emporium - Ross Mackenzie Good news - why the world is not as bad as you think Rashmi Sirdeshpande The arrival - Shaun Tan The Other side of Truth by Beverly Naidoo Dark sky park - poems from the edge of nature - Philip Gross The History of everything in 32 pages - Anne Claybourne Big questions from little people...answered by some very big people - Gemma Elwin Harris |
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Phonics and Early Reading at St Pancras
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”. Timothy 3:16-17
Intent:
From January 2022, we started using a validated Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme (SSP) called Little Wandle to teach Phonics and Early Reading. The programme is designed to teach children to read fluently from Reception (Rainbows) to Year 2, using the skill of decoding and blending to read words and encourages reading for pleasure too.
The progression of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised has been devised so that children are taught a cumulative progression of GPCs that they immediately practise through oral blending, reading and spelling words and sentences, and, later on, reading fully decodable books. Children review and revise GPCs and words daily, weekly and across terms and years in order to move this knowledge into their long-term memory. Building on their alphabetic code enables the children to tackle the spelling of unfamiliar words too with frequent modelling during Phonic lessons and across the curriculum.
Implementation:
We start teaching Phonics in Rainbows using whole class teaching and all children are actively encouraged to participate. All children are taught together but for those who are struggling, we give additional daily-targeted support to enable them to catch up. We follow the Little Wandle progression to ensure children build on their growing alphabetic code.
Phonics is taught daily for up to 25 minutes. In Rainbows, the lessons initially start with being 10 minutes long and quickly build up to longer sessions. Each lesson follows the same routine to avoid cognitive overload with a review session on Fridays.
Children in Rainbows are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy in readiness for the Phonics Screening Check in June. We expect to be at least in line with National Expectations.
Daily keep-up sessions
It is essential that every child learns to read as quickly as possible so daily keep-up sessions are planned to ensure no child is left behind. These are carefully targeted using the same resources, mantras and structure as the main lessons but are shorter and with more repetition.
Children in Year 2 and beyond are assessed using the Little Wandle Placement Assessment and targeted support given if gaps in their Phonic knowledge is highlighted. Any child in Year 2 who did not pass the Phonics Screening Check will be supported with the daily keep-up sessions.
Reading lessons
The three times a week reading lessons began in February 2022 in both Rainbows and Year 1. Each lesson focuses on a different reading skill. The first lesson focuses on decoding, the second on prosody – reading with expression and understanding and the third reading sessions focuses on comprehension – teaching the children to understand what has been read and indicating where the answer was found.
The children are put into groups of approximately six children and The Big Cats reading books are matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge. Members of staff fully trained in Little Wandle take the reading lessons and the class teacher rotates around the groups to ensure they read with each group.
Children in Year 2 and beyond who have been targeted for Phonic support will also access reading lessons in this context. This will begin in the coming weeks.
Resources
We all use the same resources, mantras and structures in both the Phonic and reading lessons to ensure consistency and fidelity and reduce the cognitive overload of the children. Lesson plans, templates, lesson prompts and how to videos are accessible to all staff via the Little Wandle website. Phonic resources have been purchased for Rainbows and Year 1 with extra for keep up sessions in other year groups.
The Reading Lead and SLT will monitor both Phonic and reading lessons to ensure consistency using the Little Wandle audit form.
Assessment
Children in Rainbows and Year 1 are assessed every six weeks to ensure their progress and target any keep-up support needed using the Little Wandle assessment sheets. Children in Year 2 upwards are also assessed using Little Wandle if phonics is a barrier. With quality-targeted support, we expect the children to make accelerated progress to close the gaps with their peers.
Extra targeted support will be put into place for any child not reaching the threshold in the Phonics Screening Check as they move into Year 2.
Impact:
The children will progress into Year 2 and beyond as confident and fluent readers. They will make good progress from their starting points and use their phonic knowledge to read unfamiliar words. Children will enjoy listening to stories and develop their reading for pleasure. Reading outcomes will be at least in line with National Expectations. Phonics Screening results will be at least in line with National Expectations.
Phonics Documents
Reading at St Pancras
Reading at St Pancras
"Blessed is he who reads this book and those who listen to the words of this prophetic message and obey what is written in this book." Revelation 1:3
Intent:
We recognise the importance of reading and continue to develop a love of reading as well as reading to gain new knowledge and understanding. We build upon the solid foundation of Phonics and early reading established in Rainbows and Year 1, and we aim for the children to become confident and fluent readers with an excellent understanding of what has been read.
Implementation:
From Year 1 upwards, children have whole class shared five reading lessons over a two-week period following the Cusp Reading Curriculum, sharing a wide range of texts and extracts. They work on a range of reading skills and the children are asked a range of question types relating to prediction, retrieval, inference, personal response, summarising, authorial intent etc.
From Year 2, children access Accelerated Reader and take quizzes once they have read their chosen reading book. Results are monitored closely and success is celebrated in the Celebration Assembly and in the newsletter.
Each term, children from Y2-6 use the Reading Assessment from PiXL to assess comprehension and results from this inform intervention and plan for future lessons. Reading speed tests from PiXL are also used to monitor and inform interventions for children.
Impact:
Reading underpins everything we do so we ensure reading happens across the curriculum. The children will leave St Pancras as confident and fluent readers who read a wide range of genres including poetry for pleasure. The children will read books to enhance their knowledge of the wider world and share their knowledge with others. Every child will make good progress from their starting points.