English

The ENGLISH CURRICULUM at Cotmanhay Infant and Nursery School

🧍‍♀️ ENGLISH LEAD = MISS STALLARD

English Overview

At Cotmanhay Infant and Nursery School we develop children’s abilities to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of purposes. Children learn to use language to communicate ideas, views and feelings. This enables children to express themselves creatively and imaginatively both verbally and through the written word. We aim to share with children the joy of reading and to help them to become life-long enthusiastic readers able to access and enjoy stories, poetry and drama, as well as non-fiction and media texts.

Reading

INTENT:

Our reading curriculum is designed to:

To deliver the National curriculum for Reading and to ensure that all children are able to access and achieve the end of Key stage outcomes / achieve ELG in reading.
Enable children to apply their developing reading skills to other subject areas including history, geography and science for research and pleasure.
Curriculum planning shows clear links between reading and other learning in school through a ‘Creative Curriculum’ approach.
Phonics is the primary strategy taught to enable the children to acquire the necessary skills to learn to read using blending alongside knowledge of CEWs.
All staff are well trained and skilled to deliver effective daily phonics lessons.
Staff are clear about what specific skills and knowledge the children need to know in order to learn to read with confidence.
Grids have been developed to show skills and knowledge progression in reading from 2 – 7 years.
Staff identify gaps in learning through regular, systematic assessment.
To foster in our children an enthusiasm for reading, developing resilience and confidence and gain a life-long love of reading

To achieve this through high quality resources, modelling by well-trained adults.

IMPLEMENTATION

We make this happen by:

Reading is taught using The Little Wandle Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) scheme.
All children access a daily phonics lesson.
Information about what the children are learning in phonics is sent home every week. This includes which Grapheme-Phoneme-Correspondence (GPC) we are learning as well as tricky/ common exception words.
A link to our Little Wandle SSP “information for parents” section is sent home every week.

Reading is taught through shared, individual and guided reading every week – in ability groups with texts closely matched to the reading ability of the children, particularly to their phonic ability. This is taught as set out in our SSP.
Reading is taught through 1-1 reading sessions with a teacher and TA .
Reading is taught through daily story time in class and assembly giving children access to a wide variety of high-quality books.
Reading is taught through carefully planned intervention sessions, with particular emphasis given to DP and SEND children.

Reading intervention includes:

Target readers – reading individually with identified children to support use of phonics / blending
Working in small groups or individually with well trained TAs on SSP targets to support specific gaps / delays with reading

Phonic intervention groups in year 1 and 2 prior to the Phonic Screen Check in June.

Children have daily access to fact books and stories linked to topics.
Every classroom has an attractive reading zone which all children can access and to the school library with a wide variety of story, poetry, fact books and comics.
Teachers plan in teams to ensure sharing of good practice and consistency.
Teaching staff receive regular updates and reminders about good practice and age-related expectations.
All staff have received training from our SSP.
Children read in ability groups and with mixed-ability pairings in class.
‘Buddy Readers’ gives older, more able readers the opportunity to share their enthusiasm with younger readers.
The teaching of reading is progressive –teachers are aware of previous learning and potential gaps – in order to plan and implement lessons appropriate to develop the skills needed to be confident, fluent readers with sound comprehension skills. (see Skills and knowledge grids)
Children are aware of the age-related expectations and reference is made to our ‘targets’ during reading lessons. These are also displayed in class.
Children are given opportunities to develop and practise their developing phonic skills in well planned and differentiated independent phonic tasks (in addition to our daily phonics lesson)
Assessment of phonics is systematic and takes place every half term in accordance with our SSP. This is consistent across key stages and is used to inform grouping and future planning.
Children with identified gaps will receive additional support in class and will take part in intervention.
Readers are closely tracked in EYFS and interventions take place daily in addition to target readers.
All of our children (from 2-year old Cubs) have the opportunity to take books home to read
Children have access to collections of age-appropriate books by the same author.
Strong emphasis is placed on engaging families to encourage reading for pleasure and reading at home.
Events throughout the year include celebration of World Book Day, Reading challenges during school holidays, participation in the local library reading challenge, Book Swaps, Book Sales and invited visitors including poets and story tellers.
Every class uses Core books, carefully chosen for each year band.
Information to support families to read is sent home and can also be found on our website.
Staff have received ‘Word Aware’ training and a strong emphasis is placed on language comprehension. Displays in class reinforce this.

IMPACT

We measure how well we are doing by:

2024 saw our best reading attainment since the introduction of the current curriculum. 86% of our children passed the PSC in June 2024.
EYFS 78% achieved GLD in comprehension and 73% in word reading.
Pupil discussion shows evidence of greater resilience and willingness to persevere with reading than in previous years – leading to better outcomes.
Effective intervention during 2023-2024 meant that 85% of the Year 2 cohort have passed the PSC.
Staff report that The Little Wandle SSP has had a positive impact on the way we teach phonics / reading at our school and shows in better outcomes for all groups of children for GPC and blending / segmenting.

For more information please visit our reading focus page

READING PROGRESSION OF SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Writing

INTENT:

Our writing curriculum is designed to:

To deliver the National curriculum for Writing and to ensure that all children are able to access and achieve the end of Key stage outcomes / achieve ELG in writing
To provide meaningful and stimulating opportunities for writing through other subject areas including history, geography and science for research and pleasure.
Curriculum planning shows clear links between reading and other learning in school through a ‘Creative Curriculum’ approach.
Close links between the teaching of writing and letters and sounds so the children are able to acquire the necessary phonics skills to learn to spell by segmenting using GPCs and to apply their knowledge of common exception words.
Teachers are familiar with the expectations of the curriculum and the age-related outcomes.
To provide rich and varied opportunities to write for a broad range of purposes and to understand the format required.
To develop in all of our children the knowledge and skills to enable them to communicate their ideas in writing so that they may fully participate and contribute to society.

Implementation

We make this happen by:

Teaching writing using a Creative Curriculum approach where subjects such as history and geography are interlinked. This gives meaning to their writing.
Every class (including Cubs) has a well-resourced and attractive independent writing zone where their writing is celebrated and displayed. Opportunities to write are also provided in role play areas across school.
Writing is celebrated on our Wow Writing corridor display.
Writing is taught in a variety of ways
Opportunities are given to plan before writing including Talk for writing, partner work, drama and role play, drawing and labelling, poetry planners, note-taking and many other strategies to scaffold ideas.
Children have access to many aids – phoneme mats, word walls, SPAG displays, writing checklists
Letter formation is taught following our Little Wandle SSP and then through Penpals for Writing scheme.
Handwriting takes place outside of writing lessons following the Penpals for writing scheme as often as possible throughout the week.
Children are encouraged to read their writing back to check and edit if necessary, using writing checklists, with an adult and independently.
We teach a balance of writing skills across the term – with good coverage of outcomes.
Weekly discrete grammar lessons ensure that the skills are in place for children to apply in their own writing.
Dictation sessions develop writing fluency from EYFS onwards.
From EYFS writers are identified and receive targeted support for writing.
Teachers plan in teams to ensure sharing of good practice and consistency.
Work samples are moderated within year bands, at staff meetings involving all staff and with local schools to ensure high expectations and consistency.

IMPACT

We measure how well we are doing by:

Our writing scrutiny across all ages shows evidence of the application of phonics and SPAG
Dictation sessions have resulted in children feeling more confident and are writing with greater fluency.
Work samples show increased output and application of skills taught across the curriculum.
In EYFS 71% achieved GLD in Summer 2024

As children enter our Cubs Nursery for 2 year olds, there are writing opportunities in all areas of learning. These run seamlessly through into Key Stage one. Children apply the skills they have been taught in all areas of the curriculum. Children are taught how to plan and evaluate their writing.

WRITING PROGRESSION OF SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE WRITING PROVISION AUDIT HOW TO HELP WITH WRITING AT HOME

Handwriting

In the Foundation Stage children develop many pre-writing skills. Correct letter formation is taught in a variety of enjoyable ways. As they become able, children begin to write letters using a variety of materials. Children are taught how to hold their pencil correctly. Children learn to regulate the size of letters, which leads to neatly presented work. Letter formation is taught alongside learning the letter sounds in the order set out in Little Wandle. When children are ready, they are taught to join letters following the Penpals scheme.

Spoken language

At Cotmanhay Infant and Nursery School we recognise that good spoken language skills are crucial and every opportunity is taken to develop good speech and language skills throughout school to enable our children to be confident, creative and successful communicators.

Throughout the year we run many interventions to support children who need extra help to develop good spoken language including Talk Time, ECAT, NELI and Speech Link.

Experienced, trained TAs deliver specific and individualised programs of support (set by the Speech and Language Therapist) for children who experience Speech and Language difficulties.

Teachers have received Word Aware training to better enable staff to develop children’s vocabulary and expressive language. We place a strong emphasis on broadening the children’s vocabulary and all year bands have a bank of key words to hear, understand and use which link to termly topics. These words are displayed in class and sent home with the termly information letter about what we will be learning.

SPOKEN LANGUAGE PROGRESSION OF SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Phonics

We have a whole page dedicated to the teaching and learning of phonics in our school. Please click on the link below to access our phonics page.

Enrichment Opportunities

RECEPTION ENGLISH LONG TERM OVERVIEW

Long term overview - CLL Reception- Literacy overview
Term	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Themes:	Traditional Tales	The Dark Woods	Pirates	Bears	Growing/ Changing – Hungry caterpillar	Robots
Reading (Comprehension and Word Reading)	To use pictures to tell stories To sequence familiar stories To independently look at book, holding them the correct way and turning pages To begin to match graphemes to phonemes for some familiar letters. To begin to blend sounds together to read simple c-v-c words	To engage in story times, joining in with repeated phrases and actions To begin to answer questions about the stories read to them To enjoy and increasing range of books including fiction, non-fiction, poems and rhymes Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet	To act out stories To begin to predict what may happen in the story To suggest how a story might end To begin to say sounds for some special friends (Digraphs) To confidently blend sounds together to read words using the taught sounds	To retell a story To follow a story without pictures or props To talk about the characters in the books they are reading To read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending	To begin to answer questions about what they have read To use vocabulary that is influenced by their experiences of books To begin to read aloud simple sentences	To answer questions about what they have read To know that information can be retrieved from books To read aloud simple sentences and books
Books – focus:	Goldilocks and the Three Bears Little Red Riding Hood Gingerbread Man Three Little Pigs Three Billy Goats Gruff Jack and the Beanstalk The Little red hen	Winnie the Witch stories Room on the Broom Funny Bones stories The Jolly Christmas Post Man The Christmas Story	Pirate School Pirate Pete Pirate stories	Going on a bear hunt Where’s my Teddy This is the bear Brown bear brown bear This is the Bear and the scary night Can’t you sleep little Bear?	The Hungry Caterpillar Mini Beast Encyclopaedia The Honeybee Jack and The Beanstalk Eating Plants The Bean Diary	The Trouble with dad and his robots How Robots protect the Planet How to Kick start a dragon Harry and the robots The robot dog
Phonics focus:	s a t p I n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f l	ff ll ss j v w x y z zz qu words ending in ‘s’ ch sh th ng nk	ai ee igh oa oo oo ar or ur ow oi ear air er (words with double letters- dd, mm, tt, bb ,rr, gg, pp. ff) Longer words	review all phase 3 graphemes, words with double letters longer words words with two or more digraphs longer words words ending in –ing compound words longer words words with s in the middle /z/ s words ending –s words with –es at end /z/	short vowels CCVCC CCCVC CCCVCC longer words longer words compound words root words ending in: –ing, –ed /t/, –ed /id/ /ed/ –est	long vowel sounds CCVC CCCVC CCV CCVCC Phase 4 words ending –s /s/ Phase 4 words ending –s /z/ Phase 4 words ending –es longer words root word ending in: –ing, –ed /t/, –ed /id/ /ed/, –ed /d/ Phase 4 words ending in: –s /s/, –s /z/, –es longer words
Tricky words:	Is I the	As and has his her go no to into she he of we me be	Was you they my by all are sure pure	Review all words taught so far	said so have like some come love do were here little says there when what one out today	Review all taught so far Secure spelling
Writing:	To copy their name To give meanings to the marks they make To copy taught letters To write initial sounds To begin to write CVC words using taught sounds	To write their name To use the correct letter formation of taught letters To write words and labels using taught sounds To begin to write small words using taught sounds	To form lowercase letters correctly To begin to write sentences using fingers spaces To spell words using taught sounds To spell some taught tricky words correctly	To form lowercase letters correctly and begin to former capital letters To write sentences using finger spaces and full stops To spell words using taught sounds To spell some taught tricky words correctly	To form lowercase and capital letters correctly To begin to write longer words which are spelt phonetically To begin to use capital letters at the start of a sentence To use finger spaces and full stops when writing a sentence To spell some taught tricky words correctly To begin to read their work back	To form the majority of lowercase and capital letters correctly To begin to write longer words and compound words which are spelt phonetically To write sentences using a capital letter, finger spaces and full stop To spell some taught tricky words correctly To read their work back and check it makes sense.
Stir up a story – inspiration	The tooth fairy explores the traditional story characters	Witches spells	Find the hidden treasure	Finding baby bear – lost in the woods	Helping Wilber the spider to make a home and meet his friends	To help rescue / find robots in space.
Fine motor skills linked to writing	To use a dominant hand To mark make using different shapes To begin to use a tripod grip when using mark making tools To begin to copy letters	To begin to use anticlockwise movement and retrace vertical lines To use a tripod grip when using mark making tools To accurately draw lines, circles and shapes to draw pictures	To use a tripod grip when using mark making tools To write taught letters using correct formation	To write letters using the correct letter formation and control the size of letters	To write letters using the correct letter formation and control the size of letters	To form the majority of letters correctly, starting and finishing in the correct position. To control the size of letters. To use a tripod grip the majority of the time.
Writing themes:	Writing our names H/W patterns on the tooth fairies clothes H/W patterns on puppets linked to the characters of the traditional stories.	Writing spells on cauldrons. H/W patterns on hats/ cauldrons. Copy/ trace H/W patterns linked to the Penpals scheme. H/W patterns linked to the Christmas theme. Write a letter to Santa using dominant sounds. Write a list of presents on a stocking. Write an invitation to the Christmas party. Write a shopping list for the Christmas party.	Write an invitation to the pirate party. Write a shopping list for the pirate party. Draw and label treasure maps. Make signs and labels for the school and classroom. Write captions where the pirates are hiding.	Write a letter to baby bear. Describe bears. Draw and label features of bears. Write captions where the bears are hiding.	Label mini beasts Draw and label farm animals. Draw and label plants. Captions linked to plants, living things and how things grow and change linked to life cycles. Write captions where the minibeasts are hiding.	Write an invitation to the summer party. Write a shopping list for the party. Write about what they are good at, what they want to get better at. Captions linked to what they can do.

YEAR ONE SAMPLE ENGLISH OVERVIEW

Autumn 1 Farms Topic

Week 1

History & Geography

Week 2

Geography

Week 3

Science

Week 4

DT & Science

Week 5

History

Week 6

Science

Week 7

ASSESSMENT –

Key questions

What is a farm?

Introduce- How do plants grow? Start experiment.

What lives on a farm?

Can you make a map of a farm?

What grows on a farm?

How do plants grow?

What is the structure of a plant?

Re-visit timeline – what was farm life like 100 years ago?

What lives on a farm?

Where does your breakfast come from? Follow the journey of wheat/eggs/bacon….

Cross Curricular Links

Look at pictures of farms – discuss types of farms – dairy (animals) arable (crops)

A: Plant seeds ready for week. Paint/draw a picture of a farm and label.

(A sense of time and place)

Look at map of the UK and locate bluebells farm.

Art – drawing and modelling farm animals

English- Read fact files about farms

Make a model of a farm – draw a map of it

Where are the animal’s houses, fields, farm house, pond...

Experiment- plant seeds in soil, sand, clay and stones.

Look at plants

Test which are healthy.

DT Design a scarecrow to protect our plants (descriptive writing).

Labelling the structure of a plant.

Draw a plant & label.

LA: label plant

HA: label plants and write a statement.

Read poetry linked to plants and harvest festival.

Look at photos of farms from a 100 years ago – look at similarities and differences.

Look at how farmers dug the fields for crops – plough and horse to tractor….

Label a sequence of pictures to show the progression of farming.

Look at the timeline – take picture of class and put on 2022

Identify and name a variety of common animals.

List the animals we saw at the farm

LA: list of animals using bullet points.

HA: why are they useful?

Non-fiction page- heading subheading

Draw a staged journey that wheat/egg/bacon takes to be on our plate.

Reading focus

GR linked to phonics

Reading farm stories- choose scarecrow who couldn’t scare, ladybird heard, farmer duck, pig in the pond.

Simple captions – link to setting/type of farm.

Match pictures to captions.

Reading facts about farms.

Make three different levels linked to what lives on a farm, what types of farms there are and what grows on farms.

Reading clues about an animal-draw what they think it is.

I am pink- link to animals.

Look at books made by us about plants.

Labels and diagrams, headings, bullet points.

What do plants need to survive? Facts about plants and different types of plants-cactus.

Poems, linked to growing-plants.

Look at different plant poems-apples apples, dingly dangly scarecrow, plants.

Reading comprehension.

Reading facts about farms from 100 years ago.

Non-fiction page. Reading facts, discussing layout and then answering simple comprehension questions.

Reading farm stories and look at setting-where are they set? Will it be a dairy farm or an arable farm. Linked to topic.

What animals do we find at the farm look in the books to find out.

Learn about farm animals and their young

Assessment of reading & writing (?) phonemes and HFW

Writing focus

Draw a picture of a farm animal, write descriptive sentences about the animal-It is pink, it has a curly tail. It eats seeds. It lives in a field and sleeps in a pen. Etc Look at small letters and capital letters.

LA: pig, dog (initial sounds)

Write a non-fiction page about what grows on a farm Headings dairy farm, crops farm. Animals on a farm

Children to write simple sentences with an adult guiding headings

Animals are nouns. Children to know a noun is a name of something you can touch.

LA: pic clue it is a (stem sentences)

Writing about our scarecrow that we have designed.

Link to describing words-adjectives colours.

SPAG link.

Writing their own poem about a plant. Plants blow

Plants sway

Plants….

Write captions about pictures from the past and now. HA: compare the differences and similarities between 2 pictures at a time.

Recount of the trip to the farm.

LA: to write about the pictures taken at the farm.

In science books

LA listing the animals that they saw in the story.

HA writing headings

Cow-write what a cow is useful for, e.g. a cow can give us milk and cheese.

Pig A pig can give us bacon and sausages. It needs to eat healthily. Etc

SPAG

Unit 1 p2-3

The alphabet:

Small letters and capital letters

Unit 2 p4-5

Naming words:

Simple common nouns

Unit 3 p6-7

Describing words: colour adjectives

Unit 5 p10-11

Doing words: present simple tense

Unit 4 p12-13

Naming words and describing words: common nouns and simple

Unit 6 p2-3

Alphabetical order: first letter ordering

Unit 7 p14-15

Doing words: present tense of verb to be

Handwriting

Practising long ladder letters: l, i

Practising long ladder letters: t, u

Practising long ladder letters: j, y

Practising all the long ladder letters.

Practising one-armed robot letters: b, n

Practising one-armed robot letters: h, m

Practising one-armed robot letters: k, p

YEAR 2 SAMPLE ENGLISH OVERVIEW

Autumn 1 Survival Topic

Week 1

Geography/History- A sense of time and place

Week 2

Geography/History- A sense of time and place

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

History Geography

Key questions

Topic Intro/

Where in the do you live?

Can you find the UK and the Pacific ocean on a globe?

What is a desert island like?

Where in the world is a desert island?

Can I use geographical terms?

What is a food pyramid? What is a balanced diet?

Can I talk about hygiene to describe how to stay healthy?

Can I talk about seasonal changes?

Can I answer the key questions from this term?

Who was……

Daniel Defoe, Alexander Selkirk? Can I talk about what I have learnt this term about survival?

Cross Curricular Links.

Listen to stories-Robinson Crusoe ..

Desert island clips- real desert islands

Geog – looking at maps and globes – notice the equator – what RC’s journey would have been like.

Where is the deserted island? Look at map of the UK

Hist- Place Alexander Selkirk on the timeline.

Geography – using a key- features of a desert island?

Island images – pastels in art.

Making maps including features of islands- mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, streams, forest, woods.

What do humans and animals need to survive?

Science – food groups / healthy and unhealthy

Food pyramid

Food groups = what if you don’t have a balanced diet?

Keeping healthy includes hygiene to prevent infections

Learn about germs, bacteria and how to stay healthy through good hygiene.

Seasonal changes

Noticing changes in the UK in Autumn.

Topic evaluation.

Revisit key questions.

Talk about what we have learnt this term.

Topic Review – conclude all learning this term for history, geography and science.

Reading focus

GR linked to phonics

HA/A-Read simple versions of the story