This page provides details about what English looks like at Crayke Primary. It includes our Intent Statement, our coverage and progression document and our “jigsaw” explaining how teaching and learning in English links to our four core values of Friendship, Forgiveness, Respect and Determination.
The English Subject Leader is: Mrs Dobson.
Details relating to Coverage and Progression in this subject can be found here:
Speaking and Listening:
Coverage and Progression in Speaking and Listening EYFS
Coverage and Progression in Speaking and Listening Y1 – Y6
Reading:
Coverage and Progression in Reading Y1 – Y6
Writing:
Curriculum-Overview-Mixed-age-Set-1-2
Pathways-Overview-of-Objectives-mixed-age-1st-year
Handwriting:
Handwriting_R_Pace-and-progression_Oct-25
LW-Handwriting_Y1_Overview-and-progression_July-26
LW-Handwriting_Y2_Overview-and-progression_Aug-26
Spelling:
School-Website-Objectives-KS2
English NC Programme of Study
Ensuring access to a rich, broad and balanced curriculum, based upon and framed by our school values of Respect, Determination, Friendship and Forgiveness, is at the heart of Crayke’s provision…
Rationale:
The fundamental aim of Crayke Church of England Primary School is to provide opportunities for children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations; creating citizens of the future who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and the wider society. This aligns with our school vision which strives to enable children to “Follow your pathway and grow together with confidence.”
This document has been divided into the following areas of English:
- Reading and phonics
- Writing
- Speaking and listening
Reading and Phonics
Reading is central to learning at Crayke CE Primary. We want every child to leave Crayke able to read fluently, to enjoy reading, and to use reading as a tool for learning across the curriculum. This page explains how we teach reading and phonics, how parents can support at home, and how this year’s School Development Plan priorities and our “Year of Reading” are bringing this work to life.
Reading and Phonics Intent:
Being a Crayke reader, supported by the 2014 National Curriculum for English and the ‘Little Wandle’ systematic and synthetic phonics programme aims to ensure that all children:
- Are enthusiastic and motivated readers with a love of literature
- Can tackle unfamiliar words as they read
- Are fluent and expressive readers
- Have the skills and knowledge to understand what they read
- Read widely across the curriculum for meaning and pleasure
- Use what they read to inspire them in their writing
- Gain a rich and varied vocabulary
Reading and Phonics Implementation:
We teach phonics and early reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
Phonics lessons build up quickly to 30 minutes a day in reception and Year 1. Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
Teaching reading in Reception and Year 1
- We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
- are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
- use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’
- are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
- Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
- decoding
- prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
- In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
From Year 2, reading comprehension skills are taught explicitly using a range of resources including ‘Comprehension Ninja.’ Children have access to a range of high-quality texts within the classroom to read for pleasure and books are displayed prominently to interest the children. We have close links with our local library and we are part of the Libraries for Primaries scheme for the year. School librarians (two children from each year group from Year 1 to Year 6,) represent and encourage a love of reading across the school. We create opportunities across the school for children to enjoy a range of high-quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Every class has story time each day, for the pleasure of listening to a high-quality story.
Home reading
For children being taught phonics lessons, the decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family once the three reading practice sessions have taken place in school. Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children in reception, Year 1 and 2.
We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.
Once children can fully decode, have passed their phonics screening check in Year 1 and are becoming increasingly fluent, they move onto the main school reading scheme. We use ‘Collins Big Cat,’ providing a link between the phonics reading books and reading beyond those texts. These books also expose children to a wide range of styles and genres of book, leading onto children becoming a ‘free reader’ further on in Key Stage Two.
Reading and Phonics impact:
Impact will be measured by assessing against the National Curriculum Age-Related Expectations statements through ‘Insight pupil tracking’ at termly intervals as:
Below, Just Below, On Track, Greater Depth
A standardised score from termly NFER tests will help inform the termly teacher judgements. The ‘Little Wandle’ assessment tool will be used for all children in reception and Year 1 each half term, whilst any children receiving keep-up additional phonics teaching will be assessed every three weeks using Little Wandle assessment tool. Pupils will sit statutory assessments in reading at the end of KS1 and KS2. Children in Year 1 will sit the phonics screening check. Children in reception are assessed against the ‘Early Learning Goals.’
http://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk
Reading for pleasure at Crayke
We want pupils to be readers for life. Our reading-for-pleasure offer includes:
- Inviting class reading corners and a refreshed whole-school reading spine.
- School librarians role that involve pupils in recommending and organising books.
- Whole-school events: author visits, book week, reading challenges and family reading evenings.
- Book‑talk embedded in lessons to develop vocabulary, thinking and a love of story.
This year’s “Year of Reading” highlights include: themed months (poetry, non-fiction, picture books), community reading mornings, an author visit, paired reading and library visits.
Supporting children with additional needs
Several of our pupils have SEND. For these children we:
- Identify needs early through precise assessment and daily monitoring.
- Provide consistent small-group or 1:1 practice focusing on the specific GPCs (grapheme–phoneme correspondences) they have not yet mastered.
- Ensure interventions are delivered by trained staff in a quiet space at a regular time and are never a lower priority than classroom teaching.
- Continue decodable book practice until children can read fluently and automatically.
How we involve parents
- We run phonics and reading information sessions and publish short guides and video links so parents can pronounce sounds correctly and support reading at home.
- We ask parents to read with their child daily where possible — even short, regular reading makes a big difference.
- For families who need it, we offer extra school‑based reading opportunities so children read to an adult at school.
Assessing progress and catch-up
- Children are assessed frequently in phonics. Individual records help us identify and respond quickly if a child begins to fall behind.
- We prioritise “keep-up” support that matches the classroom Little Wandle teaching sequence so children consolidate learning in bite-sized steps and experience daily success.
- Progress for pupils receiving catch-up or SEND support is tracked termly and reviewed by leaders to check impact.
Resources and further reading for parents
Want to know more?
If you would like a paper copy of our curriculum documents, phonics progression or parent guides, please ask at the school office or contact Mrs Dobson, English Lead via the school office.
Writing
Writing Intent:
Being a Crayke writer, supported by the 2014 National Curriculum for English, Pathways to Write and the Little Wandle handwriting scheme, aims to ensure that all children:
- Are enthusiastic and motivated writers
- Can explore and draw upon a range of taught spelling patterns and exceptions
- Are fluent writers who take pride in the presentation of their work
- Make ambitious vocabulary choices and are inquisitive about the meanings of words
- Understand and use grammatical features and punctuation to good effect in their writing
- Can apply their range of writing skills in other curriculum areas
- Consider the intended audience and purpose of their writing
Writing Implementation:
Our writing curriculum is designed using a text-based approach to help pupils acquire the necessary knowledge of grammatical structures and text types in an engaging and accessible way. This also helps to provide pupils with the desire to write and apply their knowledge and skills. The texts are carefully selected on the basis of their literary merit and to ensure an appropriate level of challenge. They also relate to our school values and the wider curriculum for each year group.
We aim to develop pupils into confident, positive and enthusiastic writers, with the intention that they will be able to write independently with resilience. It is our ambition that pupils will be able to edit and evaluate their own writing to make it the best work it can be, applying a wide range of sophisticated vocabulary, spelling and grammar skills to do this effectively. It is important that our pupils develop an awareness of the audience, purpose and context, which will prepare them for their future.
Children in reception and Year 1 explore the spellings of words through their ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ systematic synthetic phonics programme befor emoving on to the Bridge to Spelling programme throughout Year 2. In Key Stage 2, we follow a mastery approach to the teaching of spelling through the programme ‘Pathways to Spell’. It is a programme designed to deliver the statutory content of the Primary National Curriculum for spelling. Through weekly teaching of spelling objectives and development of a whole school approach to word transcription, vocabulary development and proof-reading, the programme aims to develop children as proficient spellers.
Writing Impact:
Impact will be measured by assessing against the National Curriculum Age-Related Expectations statements through ‘Insight pupil tracking’ at termly intervals as:
Below, Just Below, On Track, Greater Depth
A termly whole school writing stimulus for children to write independently, will help inform the termly teacher judgements along with children’s written work from across the term and curriculum. Children in reception are assessed against the ‘Early Learning Goals.’ The independent writing from across the school is collected and used to look at each child’s writing progress over time.
