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 Clydach Junior SchoolA Curriculum Policy for Literacy Introduction
This policy outlines provision for Literacy in our school.
The school policy for this provision reflects the consensus of opinion of the whole teaching staff. It has been drawn up as a result of staff discussion and has the agreement of the Governing Body and teachers.
The implementation of this policy is the responsibility of all staff.
Philosophy
English is a core subject in the National Curriculum. All learning takes place through language and this makes English the most important subject on the curriculum of our school. We are constantly looking for opportunities for children to rehearse their skills learnt in English lessons.
The National Curriculum Programme KS2 outlines three areas of study:-
ORACY READING WRITING
Aims
In general our aim is that:-
• all children should develop the essential skills of communicating fluently and meaningfully through speech and the written word
• each child should recognise the importance of reading for understanding and develop an imaginative response
• We meet the different needs and abilities of all children
• children learn to work collaboratively in a wide range of groupings
Since English pervades everything, we recognise that much of the Programmes of Study can be covered through other subjects. We also recognise that the 3 areas of study are strongly interlinked.
Monitoring takes place each term and there is a yearly review of the subject with the headteacher.
Special Educational Needs/Equal Access
It is a policy of the school to help pupils with SEN to gain access to all Literacy activities where possible. Where appropriate pupils with learning difficulties will gain access to the curriculum using ICT. Disapplication will be considered if deemed necessary.
Progamme of Study ORACY
Philosophy
At Clydach Junior School we believe that the ability to express oneself orally in an appropriate manner is an essential skill throughout life. Speaking and listening skills are fundamental to progress in other areas of the curriculum and to the general emotional and intellectual development of the child. Relationships are established inside and outside school through the ability to communicate thoughts, ideas and feelings.
Aims
It is our wish that every pupil should be able:-
• to express themselves orally in an appropriate way, matching their style and response to audience and purpose
• to listen closely and with understanding and to respond appropriately
• to listen and respond to literature
• to give and receive instructions
• to develop the skill of participating in group discussion
Implementation
It is the responsibility of the individual class teacher to ensure that pupils are given a range of activities. Pupils should be encouraged to speak with fluency, clarity, audibility, accuracy and confidence and to listen with understanding. We believe that:-
• all children should be given the opportunity to participate once a year in a school assembly or performance to an audience of parents, governors or children.
• all children should be taken to see local performances of plays and musicals where appropriate.
• group reading will offer excellent opportunities for teachers to nurture the skills of speaking and listening (see Reading)
• every other opportunity will be taken to encourage every child to develop oracy skills e.g. circle time, feeback on projects, questioning visitors etc.
Assessment and Record Keeping
A teacher's own assessment of a child's ability to speak and listen is essential since it is impractical to record a child's oral work.
Teachers will record opportunities pupils have to speak and listen in their Assessment folders.
Programme of Study READING
Philosophy
At Clydach Junior School we recognise that reading is the key to all independent learning and a pupil's success in reading has a direct effect on progress in nearly all other areas of the curriculum. Therefore it is given high priority.
Aims
It is our wish that every pupil should:-
• have the ability to read and understand a wide range of texts enabling them to achieve their potential throughout school and on into adult life.
Methodology
It is hoped that children will embark on Key Stage 2 at least as apprenticeship readers i.e. beginning to use initial letters and blends and with a growing sight vocabulary and knowledge of sound patterns. The staff have agreed that a multi-strategy approach will be used in the teaching of reading. This will include the phonic method, backed up by the Ginn 360 Reading Scheme, and Fuzzbuzz which are systematically graded and vocabulary controlled, but will also have language experiences supported by real books.
Teachers will also provide as many general reading experiences as possible outside formal reading lessons. These might include reading back their written work, reading instructions and advice from the teacher, reading from other children's work or from textbooks, reading from whiteboard or interactive whiteboard.
Group and shared reading will form an important part of each child's reading experience at Clydach Junior School. Pupils will have weekly opportunities to read with his/her teacher in a small group. Teachers will use a variety of texts and will give pupils opportunities to question and discuss.
Assessment/Progression & Continuity/Record Keeping
Each child's reading will be assessed on entry into the Junior School. This base-line assessment will be useful, in conjunction with assessments passed on from Key Stage 1. In addition each pupil will be given a standardized reading test (Suffolk.Reading ) at the end of each year. Pupils who are thought to have SEN will be given the All Wales Reading Test in October.
We recognise that effective assessment calls for more than simple, standardized testing which only provide summative information about individual children and tell us how their performance compares with similar age groups, locally and nationally.
Assessment should support reading development and provide teachers with formative and diagnostic information about children's progress and their future needs. Teachers will inform the SENCO of those pupils who are struggling readers and, if necessary, she will help to diagnose problems. All teachers will keep an Assessment Folder in which they will record milestones, noteworthy work or problems encountered in a child's progress.
A Home / School Contact book also logs each pupil's reading. It is kept along with comments and summaries on a range of books they have read.
Special Educational Needs
It is the responsibility of each teacher to identify children in the class who require extra support for reading. Children with reading difficulties are given help from the support teacher either by being withdrawn from class or within the class environment depending on the child and the recommendations of the teacher and support teacher. The SENCO will decide if pupils require a diagnostic Dyslexia Test. The SENCO will also decided which pupils should work with an LSA on the “Toe by Toe” programme. Pupils with severe difficulties may be offered a Statement.
Books
The school would like to have a library but space does not presently permit.
Fiction
The school uses the Ginn Reading 360 Scheme, and the Fuzzbuzz scheme. The schemes gives children the opportunity to practise and develop reading skills with texts appropriate to their vocabulary and sentence structure, where necessary. Pupils have access to a wide range of books of varying levels of difficulty to encourage further development. The school has a large stock of group as well as class reading books.
Non-fiction
It is important that the children have opportunities to use information and reference books. A variety of non-fiction books should be displayed in each classroom but most are kept in the corridor and colour-coded according to topics. Children should be encouraged to use non-fiction books for specific projects or topic work. Teachers should:-
• ensuring that, as often as possible, children are reading non-fiction for a particular purpose
• reading interesting facts from information books to stimulate discussion and questions
• encouraging children to bring and read their own contributions from information books
• encouraging them to decide which types of books are likely to provide particular information
• helping them to develop the skill of translating verbal text into a visual format e.g. diagrams, plans, picture-strip, time-line
Home/School Links
We recognise the important part parents can play in developing children's reading. Parents are made aware of the vital role they play in reading to and listening to their children. Children are encouraged to take books home or bring their own books to school.
We have a Home / School Contact book where we record children’s reading, and spelling and use to motivate pupils.
The school sends out a leaflet "Reading with your Child" and also outlines the importance of reading at home in the School Prospectus.
Parents are encouraged to help their child to do a project each year. An information sheet is sent out.
The school runs a Family Learning Group "Children and Parents Working Together". Parents attend the school one afternoon each week to learn basic skills. Parents are shown ways to encourage their own children to improve their basic skills.
Implementation
To encourage reading of high competence and quality and to promote story and literature, we will:-
• give reading a high profile by awarding house points to all those pupils who read regularly at home each week
• promote story and fiction in the classroom
• read or tell stories to our classes on a regular basis
• establish an ethos in the school that is supportive of fiction and of story telling and read stories regularly in assembly
• help children to present stories to each other in a variety of ways, both in class and in assembly e.g. tape-recordings, dramas and puppetry, sequences of pictures, model-making and individual and group presentations
• display books in prominent areas
• hold book weeks etc.,
• promote the reading of books by selling through the Scholastic Book Club
• set aside time each day for silent reading
• carry out group reading
• celebrate world Book Day, National Poetry Day etc.
Silent Reading (E.R.I.C. - Everybody Reading in Class) will take place within each classroom for 10-20 minutes every day immediately after the lunch break.
Resources
Every effort is made to create a literate environment. Every pupil has access to:-
• a variety of books within the classroom
• non-fiction books. These are mainly kept in the corridor due to lack of space but are clearly coded and labelled into sectioned areas of the curriculum. They include reference books, information, atlases poetry, biographies etc.
• audio cassettes - stories, rhymes, music and a listening station
• V.C.R. and television
• Overhead Projector
• Camera and Video Camera
• Information Technology Facilities
• Drama and Media Studies texts linked to scheme of work of class
• Poster packs
• Interactive Whiteboards
Programme of Study WRITING
Philosophy
Our school views writing as a developmental process and what  each child is capable of doing at each stage must be highly valued and praised. We are aware that a child's ability to communicate in writing affects performance in most other areas of the curriculum and for this reason it is given high priority.
Aims
It is our wish that every child will:-
• learn to write in order to be able to communicate meaning to a wide range of audiences
• match the style of their writing to the needs of their audience
• structure their writing so that it is coherent
• understand that correct spelling, punctuation and grammar help to make the meaning of their writing clear to the reader
• develop as wide a vocabulary as possible so that they are able to express their ideas in writing and engage the interest of the reader
We also believe that children cannot function as effective readers and will be frustrated as writers unless they learn certain crucial technical skills - spelling, handwriting and the correct use of grammar and punctuation. These skills are not acquired automatically and, therefore, will be taught systematically and in as interesting a manner as possible.
Implementation
• All teachers will be responsible for the planning and teaching of writing within the scheme of work
• Children will be encouraged to have a go and all attempts will be valued
• Teachers will provide short, manageable, engaging writing tasks
• Children will be given the opportunity to write in a variety of forms and for a range of audiences, including themselves
• Pupils will be encouraged to write independently and at greater length throughout the Key Stage
• They will be helped to understand why it is sometimes necessary to plan and draft writing
• They will be given meaningful purpose for writing
• Cross-curricular opportunities will be used wherever possible for providing real purposes and audiences for writing.
• Some writing skills will be taught in a subject specific way
• We recognise the value of using word-processors to help children to focus on the expression of ideas and to create professional-looking text without the encumbrance of penmanship or motor control.
• Use marking criteria and encourage the children to learn how they can improve their own writing
Assessment
Assessments should be made continuously and regularly against the programme of study. Progress is recorded and monitored individually and at class level.
In the first draft stages of writing teachers will encourage words to flow so that pupils are not hampered by the “secretarial” skills of spelling and handwriting. Only two assessments will be recorded for each child but, over the whole class, a range of assessment opportunities should be reflected.
Examples of pupils' written work will be kept in their ROPA files.
SPELLING POLICY
Philosophy
The staff at Clydach Junior School recognise the importance of correct spelling. It is a developmental process. As developing spellers, the children pass through the following stages:- pre-communicative, pre-phonetic, phonetic, transitional and "correct". We believe that spelling is a technical skill which is not acquired automatically by most pupils, therefore spelling will be taught.
Aims
Our aims are to:-
• encourage pupils to become "correct" spellers
• help pupils develop visual strategies in order to spell correctly
• help and encourage pupils in their spelling because self-esteem is closely associated with the ability to spell.
Implementation
• work related specifically to spelling will be undertaken by the children each week. A spelling list from the "Spelling Made Easy" scheme will be given out each Monday morning. Dictation and work sheet related work will be used during the week to reinforce the words in the list. Children will be tested each Friday.
• pupils will be taught phonics but encouraged also to look carefully at words
• children will be encouraged to write independently. When they require spellings for their writing they will be encouraged to attempt as much of a word as they can
• the LOOK - COVER - WRITE - CHECK - approach to learning to spell will be encouraged
• younger pupils and the less able will have word books in which they will build up a bank of words
• pupils will be taught to use dictionaries, word banks and wordsearches to help them to spell
since spelling is a visual motor skill
• teachers will help pupils develop visual strategies as spelling and handwriting are closely linked so spelling common letter strings and patterns will be taught
• the spelling policy will be applied in all cross-curricular activities
• pupils will be given lots of experience of rhymes, rhyming words, looking for print in their everyday environment, looking for familiar words and root words
• parents will be encouraged to help them learn spelling
• when using the word processor pupils will be encouraged to use a spell checker
• spelling games will be use to reinforce the learning of spellings and to make the task enjoyable
• throughout the year teachers will go over the most commonly misspelt words e.g. friend, when etc.
Assessment and Record Keeping
Spelling, while being an important aspect of writing, will not dominate working and assessment. The emphasis will be on content of writing and its meaning.
Examples of pupils' spelling will be kept.
HANDWRITING
See separate policy |
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