Welcome to Northcote’s English Page!
Our English lead is Miss Manley.
Our curriculum
Writing:
We cultivate a love of Writing and communicating through vocabulary rich and high-quality literature, using Ready Steady Write by Literacy Counts. We use a ‘vehicle text’ for each unit to inspire children’s writing. Each book has two extended writing outcomes (one fiction and one non-fiction) and five other ‘incidental writes’ (which occur throughout the unit).
This year, we are transitioning to a new curriculum for Reading (Year 2- Year 6) and Writing (EYFS-Year 6). From the summer term we will now be using ‘Ready, Steady Write’ and ‘Ready, Steady Comprehension’ for these areas of our English Curriculum. Below is the whole school overview for the new schemes of work which have been implemented from during the summer term.
Writing Coverage:
Writing Coverage Overview
Ready Steady Write Curriculum Coverage
WOW – It’s only September and look how many published authors we have already! We are so proud! The next competition will be launched this week. See Miss Manley for an entry form!
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling:
Grammar and Punctuation is taught daily in our ‘Sentence Accuracy’ sessions from Year 1 – 6, as part of our Ready Steady Write curriculum. This carefully planned scheme ensures coverage of the National Curriculum objectives and helps to children embed the skills taught in these sessions in their writing. Spellings are taught weekly, in line with the National Curriculum expectations.
In September, we will be transitioning to ‘Ed Shed’ spellings in Years 2 – 6, where children will be taught spelling rules and word meanings and origins and embed learning further using the interactive online app. Logins for the app will be shared with parents in the Autumn term, so this app can also be used at home to further promote spelling knowledge and acquisition.
Phonics and Early Reading:
At Northcote Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
As a result, our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Northcote Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.
There is more information for families within this link. https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Shared Reading (years 2-6):
Shared reading sessions are taught daily in years 2-6, as part of our Ready Steady Comprehension curriculum, in which children are exposed to a variety of texts and genres and are taught reading skills and strategies explicitly.
Shared Reading Coverage:
Shared Reading Coverage Overview
Our Wider Reading Offer:
At Northcote, we aim to develop a love of reading for all children. We believe in the motto ‘Learn to read, then read to learn’. Through reading a variety of texts our aim is to develop fluent readers, who can understand, interpret and communicate with each other and the world around us. Reading is embedded in our phonics and shared read and text-driven writing curriculum, to develop both reading enjoyment and attainment. We also have a wide range of reading books available throughout the school: in class libraries, corridors and even in our entrance! Children are encouraged to borrow from these areas and enjoy reading these books for pleasure.
World Book Day
World Book Day is one of our favourite events to celebrate reading, held in school every year. Our teachers enjoy dressing as characters from famous children’s books and we love our whole school parade, where we celebrate our favourite stories and characters from these. We invite all of our parents to join us for our reading lessons in the morning and to see how we learn in school. They love getting involved. This year (2024) they said:
“This is my favourite day of the year. I love seeing how our children are taught reading in class, so I can help them more at home!”
“It is so nice to see all of the children dressed up as their favourite book characters. Some I had never heard of and they enjoyed telling me all about the book and its characters!”
Here we are on our parade this year. Can you spot any of your favourite characters?
