English

Our aim is for the children to develop a love of reading and writing, through exposure to high quality texts, which inspire, engage and enrich the children’s language, throughout their learning journey.

Phonics Co-ordinator Miss Rachel Thomas

‘Phonics is the underpinning of reading and writing, and I believe developing a love for phonics is the starting point to making children passionate and enjoy reading and writing!’

Reading and Writing Co-ordinator Mrs Ali Steer

‘As a lover of children’s literature, I love passing on my passion to the children in school. One of my favourite events is when a child shares that they have bought a sequel to a book we have read in class or has it on their Christmas list!”

Aim

At Hampton Lucy School we aim to nurture confident, competent readers, who have a love of reading. We endeavour to ensure our children leave Hampton Lucy School confident to write for a wide range of audiences and purposes, with neat, joined writing, being able to spell confidently.

Phonics

During reception and class 2, children are given a firm understanding of phonics through daily phonics lessons. These lessons are based on the scheme ‘Twinkl Phonics’. Parent information evenings are held in both classes to ensure that parents understand our approach to teaching phonics and to enable them to support their child’s learning journey. Teachers share resources to support parents in this.

Children’s phonic development is regularly assessed, and delivery of phonics is adapted to ensure they meet the required standard by the end of year 1. Expected progression of Phonics is as follows: 

Children who require extra support are given same day interventions and children who have not met the required standard at the end year 1, have small group interventions during year 2 to give them the opportunity to catch up with their peers.

Children with SEND, who have still not met the required standard by the end of year 2 benefit from a range of targeted interventions, including interventions led by external agencies who can offer specialist assistance.

Reading and Writing

At Hampton Lucy C of E Primary School, we have a daily English lesson, using The Literacy Tree scheme as our starting point. We read a wide range of high-quality texts, exposing children to rich vocabulary. We use these as inspiration for our writing, giving children a clear audience and purpose. 

The grammar curriculum is fully embedded into our writing, ensuring that the children understand how using particular grammatical structures can influence and improve their writing. 

Children take part in daily reading sessions which give the children time to enjoy books and increase their stamina for reading. Children also take their reading books home on a daily basis, along with a home-school reading diary where children’s reading achievements and targets can be shared with parents. Parents are encouraged to comment on home reading.

Spelling

We use twinkl spelling as our scheme for spelling. This covers the patterns and common exception words required for each year group. 

Teachers teach a range of methods for learning spelling patterns, such as:

• rainbow write - where the children write over the word in a variety of colours.
• Quick write - How many times can you correctly spell a word in 1 minute?
• Pyramid write.

B

Be

Bec

Beca

Becau

Becaus

because

• Mnemonics - clever ways to remember a spelling (it is necessary to have one collar and two sleeves)
• Look, say, cover, write, check

When marking children’s work we highlight some mistakes (between 3 and 5 depending on the age of the child). We start by giving the child the word and asking them to practise the spelling, as the child progresses through school we ask them to use a dictionary and finally will point out there are spelling mistakes but ask the child to identify them themselves. 

Some children find spelling particularly difficult, and we have a dyslexia specialist teacher, who supports children displaying dyslexic traits on a 1:1 basis.

The Literacy Environment

We are very proud of our newly refurbished school library which houses some topic and a wide range of reading books. Children can access the library regularly to change and enjoy books. We try to enrich the reading environment for children by purchasing sequels or other books by the authors we have been studying in class, as well as buying award winning books and books celebrating particular events, such as Black History Month or World Book Day.

Classrooms have a ‘working wall’ where exciting vocabulary can be collected, key learning points are shared and children’s ‘Wow’ work displayed.

Celebrating reading and Writing

The school annually celebrates world book day by dressing up and having a day of activities inspired by our favourite books.

Below are some of the themes we base our English learning on