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Blossomfield

Infant and Nursery School

'Blossom at Blossomfield'

English

English

 

The programmes of study that we follow are:

Foundation Stage: Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. (Literacy, Communication & language)
Key Stage 1: National Curriculum 2014

 

Subject Leader: Tracey Rae 

Megan Kilby (Shadow Leader)

English Support: Amna Tahira (phonics), Jo Hazel (EAL and Intervention Lead)

 

At Blossomfield, we believe that everyone should be able to articulate their thoughts and ideas with confidence. Staff aim to provide our children with the knowledge and skills they need to communicate orally and through the written word. We believe it is vitally important that every child foster a love of books, so that they may become fluent and competent readers for pleasure and for information. Children are given opportunities to apply their knowledge to enrich other areas of their learning.

 

Speaking and listening

Throughout school, children are taught to speak confidently, fluently and audibly. They are expected to participate in discussions asking questions of each other and providing answers in extended sentences. This is modelled to them by staff, and children who find this difficult are sensitively supported to share their views and know that they have a right for their voice to be heard.  Teachers plan a wide range of activities which promote oracy, such as drama, role play and storytelling.

 

English as an Additional Language (EAL)

At Blossomfield there is a collective responsibility to identify and remove barriers that may stand in the way of our children’s achievement and inclusion; this includes children who have English as an Additional Language. We work closely with the EAL service in Solihull to support children to access the curriculum and achieve their full potential. In school we raise the profile and celebrate the variety of languages spoken through planned events and displays.

 

Phonics

Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) is our chosen phonics programme. The aim of ELS is 'Getting all children to read well, quickly'. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words. 

 

Children begin learning phonics at the very beginning of Nursery and it is explicity taught every day during a dedicated slot on the timetable. Children are given the knowledge and the skills to then apply this independently. 

 

Throughout the day, children will use their growing phonics knowledge to support them in other areas of the curriculum and will have many opportunities to practise their reading. This may include reading 1:1 with a member of staff, reading in a small group, with a partner during paired reading and as a class. 

Children continue daily Phonics lessons in Year 1 and further through the school to ensure all children become confident, fluent readers.

 

We follow the ELS progression and sequence. This allows our children to practise their existing phonic knowledge whilst building their understanding of the ‘code’ of our language GPCs (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence). As a result, our children can tackle any unfamiliar words that they might discover. 

Children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills they need to become fluent independent readers and writers. ELS teaches relevant, useful and ambitious vocabulary to support each child’s journey to becoming fluent and independent readers.

 

We begin by teaching the single letter sounds before moving to digraphs ‘sh’ (two letters spelling one sound), trigraphs ‘igh’ (three letters spelling one sound) and quadgraphs ‘eigh’ (four letters spelling one sound).

We teach children to:

• Decode (read) by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently

• Encode (write) by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.

 

The structure of ELS lessons allows children to know what is coming next, what they need to do, and how to achieve success. This makes it easier for children to learn the GPCs we are teaching (the alphabetic code) and how to apply this when reading.

 

ELS is designed on the principle that children should ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’. Since interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher, any child who is struggling with the new knowledge can be immediately targeted with appropriate support. Where further support is required, 1:1 interventions are used where needed. These interventions are short, specific and effective.

 

Reading

We expect everyone, including the adults in school, to read every day. Every classroom has a reading area, which is used to encourage children to foster a love of stories and non-fiction texts. Children are expected to discuss books that they read and share with their peers what they like or dislike about a book. We aim to use stories every day across the curriculum, both for pleasure and for stimulus and discussion. There is at least one story time session timetabled every day, where children can absorb themselves in a book, which is read to them. In each classroom, children vote for the book they would like to be read to them at the book voting station. These books are usually linked to the current topic. Oxford Reading Tree is our main reading scheme, supplemented by a number of books from parallel schemes such as the Collins 'Big Cat' series and Heinemann 'Sails' to give breadth in reading.  This ensures the children have access to a range of stories, characters, vocabulary, print, layout, styles and genre. Additionally we have a large bank of fiction and non-fiction books for children to choose from in our classrooms and library. Children read and discuss these books in guided groups in school and also take them home to share. All children have a reading diary in which teachers, parents and the children can record 'reading messages' . Our school library is central to our reading ethos and it is regularly visited and enjoyed by the children and the teachers in school.

 

Writing

From the very earliest stages, children at Blossomfield are encouraged to become confident, creative and independent writers. A range of high quality texts are used from differing genres, to enable children to write to suit their audience and purpose of a task. Children are expected to apply their writing skills across the wider curriculum. Termly samples of the children's writing are kept in a special writing book from Nursery and continue throughout the school to provide a detailed record of progress, which can be reflected on by the children with their teachers regularly. This writing record goes home to parents each term for them to peruse with their child and provide an encouraging comment that they can read to their child.  Staff model correct letter formation at every opportunity and children are encouraged to use the correct formation in all of their handwriting.  Handwriting is taught as a separate lesson and linked to the phonics teaching. 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                   

ENGLISH OVERVIEW FROM NURSERY TO YEAR 2

 

 

NURSERY

RECEPTION

 

YEAR 1

YEAR 2

PHONICSPhase 1 phonicsPhase 2/3/4 phonicsPhase 5 phonicsPhase 6 phonics

TERM

    

autumn 1

Who am I?

My Nursery

Growing Up

British Food Week

Handy Week

Autumn

Diwali

 

 

Me in my World

Phase 2 phonics

Starting school stories

Name Writing

Pre-cursive script for writing.

Elmer stories – focus on being different

Owl babies

Writing about what children like – intial sounds

Vocabulary and labels for family names and relationships

Caves or Waves

Reading labels and signs

Alphabetical order

Labels/ captions linked to geography/ science

Writing new poems/ stories

Non-fiction writing linked to geography/ science

Sequence events in a story

Texts

We’re going on a bear hunt, The sea is deep

 

World War 2

Non-fiction reading linked to history – features of non-fiction and how organised

Drama through stories – creating expression

Character and setting descriptions linked to history

Drama through stories – creating expression

Texts

Postcards, non-fiction texts about WW2, recipe cards

autumn 2

What do we Celebrate?

Bonfire Night/Anti-bullying week

Birthdays

Birthday stories

Nativity

Christmas

Christmas

Nursery Noel

You are my Hero

Phase 2/3 phonics

Name Writing (surnames)

Pre-cursive script for writing.

Labels

Letter writing

Home address  

Fiction and non-fiction books about emergency services

Christmas stories and songs

What’s in a Gift?

Instruction writing – using time words/ bossy verbs

Character and setting descriptions

Texts

Pinocchio, Dogger, Christmas story

Back to Backs – WW2

Recounts of real life events

Invitations, persuasive posters and letter writing

Story language to create own versions of traditional stories

Texts

Non-fiction texts about back to backs

 

spring 1

That’s Incredible!

The Gruffalo

Fairies

Chinese New Year (Highway Rat) Dragons & Princesses (Zog)

Dinosaurs

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Once upon a Time – Traditional Tales

Phase 3 phonics

Nursery rhymes

Writing – letters, lists, labels, re-telling stories, speech bubbles

Pre-cursive script for writing.

Story maps for traditional tales

Hot Seating characters from stories

Theatre visit

Mother’s Day cards

Super Structures

Story structure – beginning, middle and end

Problems and solutions in stories

Repetition in stories – story pattern

Non-fiction fact writing

Acrostic poetry

Texts

Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Three Billy Goats Gruff, non-fiction texts and poems linked to castles and buildings

 

 

Famous Faces

Shakespeare

Story writing in an author’s style

Creating new characters for stories – expanded noun phrases

Dictionaries – spelling and meanings of words

Texts

William Shakespeare

 

spring 2

All around our World

Non-fiction texts about the continents Australasia

Africa

The Americas

Asia

Europe

 

How does your Garden Grow?

Phase 3 phonics

Writing using phonics and high frequency words – letters, labels, lists, speech bubbles and cards

Phonic apps on iPads

Cursive script for writing

Adjectives using ‘FANTASTICS’ to scaffold writing

Hot Seating characters from stories e.g. the giant.

To Infinity and Beyond

Creating own poems using rhyming couplets and non-rhyme

Reading comprehension

Fact files – astronauts

Create science book linked to materials

Books reviews

Texts

The darkest dark, Tim Peake’s space diary, Aliens love underpants, Beegu

 

 

Shakespeare

Rhyming words and alliteration to create new poems

Writing for different purposes

 

 

Texts

The owl and the pussycat,

 

summer 1

All Aboard!

write dance – scrimbling

Story scribing – journals

Introduce passports

Labels linked to topic

 

All things Wild

Phase 3/ 4 Phonics

Vocabulary linked to learning themes

Author study – Eric Carle

Labels for animals and mini beasts, habitats, parts of mini beasts.

Writing information posters.

Speech bubbles

Acrostic poems

Curious Creatures

Comparison of stories by the same author

Noticing speech and repeating patterns

Texts

Tiger who came to tea, Percy the Park keeper, poems and non-fiction texts relating to animals

 

Rainforest

Inferences of character feelings

Story writing in an author’s style/ biography

Exclamations, commands, questions and statements

Dictionaries – spelling and meanings of words

Texts

Non-fiction texts/ poetry relating to the rainforest

 

 

summer 2

Splish, Splash, Splosh

Treasure Maps

Write Dance

Labels

 

Commotion in the Ocean

Phase 4 phonics

Vocabulary linked to learning themes

Reading non-fiction books/ play scripts/ poetry

Making posters

Non-fiction texts about sea creatures

Atlas

What’s Around Us?

Linked to geography and our local area.

 

Texts

poems and non-fiction texts relating to weather/ local area

 

Author study

Recounts and memories

Writing narratives

Texts

Roald Dahl,

 

 

 

 

 

School Values

Below are our core values.

Respect

Happy

Kind

Inclusive

Honest

Ambitious

Responsible

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