Writing at Kingshill Church School
At Kingshill Church School we are striving to equip all children with the tools required to read and write at a level that allows success across all areas of the curriculum and life. Through the acquisition of these skills, we hope to instil a love of reading and writing that is formed in the earliest stages of our early years provision, nurtured and developed through KS1 and 2 and then continues to flourish as the children transition into KS3 and beyond.
Following a progressive curriculum in both reading and writing, children are targeted to meet the age-related expectations for their year group.
Subject organisation:
English is taught on a daily basis, with all areas of the English curriculum being addressed throughout the day. Teachers plan opportunities for children to read and write each day, including writing across the curriculum.
English learning occurs daily within:
- Phonics lessons (EYFS and KS1)
- Spelling lessons (KS2)
- Writing for accuracy (all year groups)
- Daily English writing lesson incorporating our SPAG progression of skills and genre coverage
- Daily teaching of reading lessons (KS2) and guided reading (KS1)
- Daily whole class shared reading
How we teach English:
Our English curriculum is based on the National Curriculum objectives and follows a sequential and progressive structure which allows children to secure a fundamental understanding of the English language (in both written and word form).
Our writing curriculum follows our own personalised progression documents, which details the expected grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills our children will be able to apply by the end of each unit of writing. By following a systematic genre coverage, we are able to expose children to a range of writing styles each year. Every unit of writing is supported by a specific SPaG toolkit to help children identify the elements of grammar and punctuation that they have used
Whole School Overview of Texts for Writing 2023 2024
Kingshill Year R1 writing progression
Kingshill Year 2 and 3 writing progression
Kingshill Year 3 and 4 writing progression
Kingshill Year 4 and 5 writing progression
Kingshill Year 6 writing progression
Spelling:
At Kingshill Church school we use ‘Spelling Shed’ for the Teaching and Learning of Spelling across Key Stage 2 (Y3, Y4, Y5 and Y6) and in Year 2 when pupils have secured their Phonics Teaching and Learning.
You and your child will also be able to access what Spelling Shed has to offer at home too.
Click on this link to explore Spelling Shed and what it has to offer both at school and at home.
The teaching of spelling at Kingshill Church School, using Spelling Shed as its core, follows teaching:
Parental Guides:
The documents below will provide assistance with the language used in school which your child is familiar with
Reading at Kingshill
A love of reading is encouraged by an ever-increasing range of provision such as:
- Daily class text shared by teacher.
- Regular access to the school library for pupils
- Daily teaching of reading lessons.
- Focus authors for each half term to expose children to 6 new authors each year.
- Opportunities to read aloud and independently each day.
- 1:1 reading opportunities with an adult
- Completion of Accelerated Reader quizzes when books are completed.
- Inviting and well-stocked book corners in every classroom
Children are exposed to a wide range of high-quality texts throughout the school. In the Early Years and KS1 this is supported by our Unlocking Letters and Sounds texts, which are fully phonically decodable alongside, the whole class sharing of popular children’s books to promote reading for pleasure. These books are read to the children regularly so that they become familiar, and the language and vocabulary begins to be embedded in the children’s own language patterns.
In KS2 (or when ready) children access reading through Accelerated Reader which we use as a diagnostic tool for children’s reading progress and to encourage children to read a wide range of texts.
Our approach to reading in Early Years and KS1 is through the Unlocking Letters and Sounds guided reading scheme, which supports the children with reading aloud, reading to a partner, reading in their head and answering questions on the texts.
In KS2 we use quality texts from Cracking Comprehension, Literacy shed, class readers and many more. We structure our teaching to ensure the children receive a balance of skills teaching from retrieval to inference to summarising.
We also draw upon the ‘Reading House’ below and the ‘Reading Rope’ research and strategies to help us ensure our teaching is pitched correctly and we are exposing the children to all of the strands necessary to be a successful reader and to understand what you are reading.
