Underpinning all we do is a belief that every moment a child is in school is precious and so everything we do is ‘on purpose’.
Curriculum Context & Development:
Reading:
In order to raise the attainment and close gaps we have chosen our approach to be Success for All. Success for All (SFA) is a reading and writing programme devised to accelerate and challenge children’s reading and writing abilities. It initially lays strong foundations in both oracy and English with Nursery and Reception children and goes on to provide systematic teaching throughout the primary years. Our provision provides a wide range of opportunities for children to explore and develop phonic knowledge and comprehension strategies; develop vocabulary and spelling; improve grammatical awareness; analyse whole texts; and develop writing in a range of genres, all whilst exposing children to a wide range of interesting, bright and diverse range of literature.
Key features of the Reading curriculum:
Roots - This Key Stage One programme builds on the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics in Reception. The four basic components of Roots consist of Fast-Track Phonics, Shared Stories, Story Telling and Retelling, and Writing.
KS2 – This Key Stage Two provision has a strong focus on reading for fluency and comprehension. The main aim is to give children a love of reading and create fluent and confident readers by the end of Year 6, well-able to clarify and question a range of texts. The provision supports and challenges both basic and more competent readers. It develops their skills through reading a wide range of carefully selected literature including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Language development – our supportive model of language development with a heightened emphasis on speaking first and mastering this runs alongside our understanding of children’s development at every stage of their education with us. Sentence stems are developed and aid understanding of the learning process, expectation and application for all children.
Writing:
Writing is taught across 2 different areas within the curriculum – the skills within English lessons and the ability to apply their skills within the text they are reading & across the Wider Curriculum through applied writing demonstrating language and knowledge taught at the end of each term.
Expectations of writing are highlighted within our progressive writing guidance for all year groups.
Teachers are provided with clear guidance on the progression of their writing development.
Green models are written by teachers to use as models to highlight misconceptions, specific aspects of grammar and the expectation of writing.
Moderation takes place throughout phase meetings and within one staff meeting within each half term – this aids the progressive understanding of children’s skills, gaps and strengths across year groups and the academy as a whole.
The skills needed for each writing purpose are built and the children have time to practice and consolidate this learning collaboratively as a class or within teams.
The cycle of write, correct, improve, practice is encouraged to continue throughout a unit of work.
Key features of the Writing curriculum:
Clarity over what makes successful, age-appropriate writing. Using writing progression grids to support teachers in which key skills must be taught in each year group.
Such expectations are maintained using high quality models written by teachers during planning and created in lessons through high quality modelled and shared writing with the children to ensure that children are exceptionally clear of outcomes.
Local authority moderators who work within the trust are utilised to moderate writing and review next steps/writing targets for each year group.
High expectations around key skills: spelling and grammar. Embedded in our writing curriculum is the application of age-appropriate spelling and grammatical skills.
Opportunities for age-appropriate writing are mapped out in Applied Writing in Wider Curriculum across the academic year. This ensures that children are exposed to a range of genres and are able to consolidate and apply knowledge across the curriculum through their writing.
Children’s writing outcomes are tailored to their specific needs and individual targets.
A GPS glossary has been created to ensure the consistent use of terminology across the school.
High expectations around key skills: phonics. Phonics is taught systematically from Nursery and through to Key Stage 2 as appropriate.
Staff are confident in their field through regular CPD and model the application of segmenting sounds to write phonetically plausible words with appropriate age groups.
Such skills are revisited in Key Stage 2 using clarification strategies to support children in writing new words.
Cursive continuous handwriting - Children at Tudor Academy learn continuous cursive handwriting and are encouraged to join up their letters from Year 1 onwards with both entrance and exit strokes.