The National Curriculum has provided all leaders with an outline of the statutory requirements of English and it is from this that teachers have outlined the key skills and attitudes needed to become literate. By being taught systematically the skills needed, with opportunities to talk and share ideas, together with high quality texts from inspiring authors, our children will become confident and enthusiastic writers. By seeing high quality models of what good writing looks and sounds like, our children are given a clear understanding of what good writing is. Where possible texts will link with the exciting and stimulating topics that have been shaped to promote the development of pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills in all curricular areas. This enables children to write from experience (either real, or through role play/drama) or reading/research just as real authors do. Teachers create a positive attitude to writing within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all pupils are capable of achieving high standards in writing.
INTENT
At Cloudside Academy, we want our children to develop a love of learning and to be curious about the world around them. This will enable them to be resilient, independent and life-long learners with skills that they can apply both within their time in education and beyond. We want children to enjoy and learn about writing, see themselves as writers and develop a sense of how important it is, how it relates to their everyday lives and their role within it. They should be able to develop their own questions and interests and express their ideas clearly and confidently. They will also develop the ability to problem solve and work cooperatively by building and sharing their experiences and knowledge with others and to support each other regardless of their background to become effective authors.
English and wider curriculum text / genre overview 2023 / 2024
Reading at Cloudside Academy
At Cloudside, we believe that reading is the bedrock of the curriculum. We carefully select the texts that we teach as part of the curriculum to ensure that children can discuss and debate key social issues. We have strong emphasis on healthy relationships and positive mental health. As Cloudside’s community is in increasing in diversity, children’s understanding and awareness of other cultures and religions is paramount. Throughout every aspect of our curriculum, all children have access to high quality texts to engage and enthuse towards all subjects. Wider opportunities to promote a love for reading are embedded within the curriculum.
To support any child who did not pass the Phonics screening test in Key Stage 1, we offer a phonics intervention using the Read Write Inc phonics programme. We assess every child on their ability to read and spell the first 300 high frequency words and use precision teaching as a targeted intervention to support any child who is not fluent.
Children across school are also signed up for Lexia (https://www.lexiauk.co.uk/why-lexia/). Lexia is a proven intervention tool that supports all learners with identifying bespoke gaps in their knowledge. Lexia is a structured and systematic approach to literacy instruction that acts as the foundation for student learning, and reading and literacy development. Once a unit has been completed, children are rewarded with a certificate to show the progress being made. We celebrate this within assemblies each week.
We also know that reading for pleasure is the gateway to life-long learning and so, to complement our robust Reading Curriculum, we incentivise the children to discover the joy of a good book at every opportunity.
If you would like to see which books can be quizzed on once read, follow this link to the Accelerated Reader bookfinder.
READING AT HOME
By reading four times a week or more outside of school, the children earn raffle tickets. These raffle tickets get entered into a termly prize-draw where the children stand a chance of winning magnificent prizes such as a bike, a compendium of games or a tablet!
Reading at home is not just limited to the children’s school reading book, anything counts – a comic subscription, a favourite book, the football results, blog, shopping list – just make sure to write in the Reading Diary so that the children are awarded the raffle tickets they are due.
The class with the highest percentage of children reading at home each week are pronounced the week’s VIP Readers. This richly contested accolade means that members of the winning class each week have unlimited access to the school’s library which the children normally access for book changing only.
BLUE TOKENS
Once a child has finished their reading book, they get an opportunity to ‘quiz’ with a set of comprehension questions designed to check the depth of understanding of the story, its themes or messages, character empathy etc. If the children answer these questions – usually between five and ten – with 100% accuracy they earn a Blue Token.
The number of quizzes taken by each child (and therefore the number of books read) is tracked in class on a Reading Track. This is an easy way for children to demonstrate how many school reading books they are accessing and how many quizzes they are taking.
Each time the children quiz, their word count is registered. Every year, children who read 1,000,000 words or more get to visit Waterstone’s Book Shop where they browse the amazing stock, choose a book or two then visit the café for a warming hot chocolate before returning to school with their purchase.
THE BOOK SHOP
Probably the children’s favourite part of amassing the blue tokens for successful quizzing is when they come to spend them! In school, we have a very special Book Shop where these blue tokens are the only acceptable currency. The Book Shop is stocked with a vast range of current best-sellers, classics, picture books, fiction and non-fiction texts and books requested specifically by the children. Once the children have saved up enough tokens, they come along to the Book Shop and take home a brand new book of their choice to keep.
Extra reading opportunities
As well as an extensive library of our own, we also offer the children access to Myon. Myon is an online library with a wide range of books available. All books on Myon are linked to Accelerated Reader and the children can quiz on them once they have been read, meaning they can add to their blue token tally. In addition to this, we take every class, each year, to visit the Sandiacre library. This allows every child the opportunity to experience the library and see what books are on offer, sign up for a library card and loan books outside of school. The children love this experience!