English

At Highburton First Academy, we encourage children to become independent writers and fluent readers using a range of strategies. We use high quality texts to engage children and encourage them to foster a love for reading and writing.

Intent

Our intent in the teaching of English is to inspire a love of reading and writing through high-quality texts, while systematically building children’s understanding of genre-specific features, sentence structure, vocabulary, and grammar. We aim to develop confident, independent writers who are able to plan, draft, edit, and evaluate their writing. By using engaging texts as a stimulus, we hook children into learning and provide a meaningful context for writing. The focus is on developing key skills through modelling and guided practice, underpinned by clear learning objectives and success criteria derived from the national curriculum and the Teacher Assessment Framework.

Implementation

Our English sequence begins with an exploration of the chosen text, where children are introduced to its genre and key features, displayed clearly on the Working Wall (WW) for reference. Predictive questioning and author exploration deepen comprehension and engagement. A high-quality model text (WAGOLL), both typed and handwritten on the WW, is used to highlight specific writing features, grammar, and punctuation elements, using colour-coding to support clarity and understanding.

Teachers model writing processes explicitly, using sentence structures and grammar features. Rehearsal activities allow children to internalise and practise skills in context before applying them independently. Writing is built up incrementally, with structured opportunities for editing and improving work. Yellow box editing is used to help children reflect on and improve their writing on a larger section, redrafting and improving. The final piece, the End of Unit Piece (EOUP), showcases the cumulative learning and is not required to be ‘written up in best’ unless it serves a purposeful function as part of publishing.

The Working Wall is an essential tool throughout, displaying all stages of the sequence, allowing children to refer back to key vocabulary, sentence structures, genre features, and the WAGOLL as they write.

Impact

Through this structured yet creative approach, children gain confidence and competence in reading and writing. They develop a secure understanding of text features, grammar, punctuation, and the writing process. The use of high-quality texts stimulates curiosity and provides a meaningful context for developing language skills. The visible learning journey on the Working Wall enables children to become more independent and reflective writers.

By the end of each unit, pupils will have produced a piece of writing that demonstrates their ability to apply taught skills, edit and improve their work, and write for a clear purpose. Over time, this leads to improved attainment and progress in writing, better engagement in reading, and a stronger sense of audience and purpose in their work.

Writing

Find our Writing overviews for each year group below:

Reception

Year 4

Reading

Reading is at the heart of our school curriculum; whole class reading sessions in the early periods of the day promote the love of reading which is a protected time for the teaching of reading. Later in the day, reading for pleasure time after lunch, and also whole class novel reading time, or in times of DEAL (drop everything and listen), allows for further opportunities to engage or children in a wealth of good quality texts which fosters our love of reading weaved through our school day.

Our reading areas are consistent through school including 5 key areas: spotlight author (each class has an author and a range of books for their collection), multicultural, topic, fiction/non-fiction and poetry. Topic books may change throughout the year to support the teaching of knowledge across foundation subjects.

Our children have the opportunity to visit our library area in the reading for pleasure time after lunch where they always have the opportunity to choose a reading for pleasure book from the library additionally to the books in classrooms.

Class Authors

Each class within school has a class author. This is to encourage children to make informed choices when choosing a book to read. This ensures that the children in school have been exposed to at least 6 different authors within their time in school.

Reception

Julia Donaldson

Year 1

Nick Sharatt