Curriculum Aims

In ensuring that ‘Better Never Stops’, our English curriculum aims to ensure that:

• Our pupils grow to be individuals that habitually read widely, both for pleasure and for information, as a result of teaching practices that ensures ‘every child can’.
• Pupils become confident, articulate speakers, enjoying the opportunity to, and are able to, speak, perform, present and debate confidently so that they are equipped with the skills for their future careers/employment.
• Pupils appreciate our rich and varied literacy heritage.
• Pupils are engaged, confident and able writers – writing clearly, accurately and coherently for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences – so that they are equipped with the writing skills for a range of situations they may encounter in their later lives.
• Pupils are resilient writers, constantly editing and improving their work in aspiring to better themselves as learners so that they can build the skills of reflection, creativity and perseverance.
• Pupils take pride in their handwriting as a result of perseverance and stamina.

 

Why is reading so important?

We believe that the importance of developing reading competence cannot be overstated as it is the fundamental facilitator of much learning throughout life.Children must be encouraged to become independent, knowledgeable and reflective readers. High-quality teaching is the key factor in whether or not children learn to read.

 

 

Teaching of reading

At Spa Academy, the teaching of reading is primarily taught through whole-class reading that link to a particular novel. These novels are carefully chosen (using a variety of tools, such as Lexile analysis) to ensure they are appropriately challenging and provide oppourtunities for high-quality debate and discussion. At the bottom of this page, you are able to access further information on our reading sequence. 

Our clear progression model aims to ensure that teaching across school is sequential and progressive, building upon pupils' prior knowledge and providing appropriate challenge. Our progression model outlines the route map that pupils take in mastering each of the key reading skills (for which we use the acronym VIPERS).

 

For example, the images below demonstrate the core skill of retrieval and how this might look across school. 

 

 

 

 

Reading is assessed on a regular basis using:

• Formative and summative assessments during lessons;
• Weekly summative assessments, with Day 5 of our reading cycle focusing on applying all VIPERS skills to an unseen text;
• Discussion with parents/carers about individual reading material at home;
• Book-banded books with each class teacher completing a half termly book band tracker;
• Discussions with pupils around the choice of their library books;
• Individual reading books;
• Termly summative assessments;
• Discussions during Learning Review meetings.

 

Spa's approach to Phonics

At Spa Academy Askern we use the Read Write Inc (RWI) programme to ensure those children that still require phonics teaching make accelerated progress.

When using RWI to read the children will:

• learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts;
• learn to read words using Fred Talk;
• read lively stories featuring words they have learned to sound out;
• show that they comprehend the stories by answering questions.

 

Reading Books

 

Developing a 'love' of reading