Oracy

Intent

Communication and language skills provide the foundation for the development of later literacy skills thus we believe oracy education should be the golden thread that unites every stage of a child’s schooling. Our aim at Kingsfleet is to provide all children with the skills to listen, process and respond effectively and confidently to a variety of stimuli. These skills, as outlined in The National Oracy Framework include the nurturing of each child’s physical, linguistic, and social and emotional abilities to convey their thoughts, feelings and understanding.

Implementation:

Each week, children are encouraged to participate in a whole school assembly where a story, poem, theme or concept are introduced. Focus questions are proposed and are then discussed and reflected upon in class and then, age phase assemblies throughout the following days to allow children to succeed in different sized focus groups and with varied audiences. Children are also encouraged to discuss the assembly content with family members and other willing participants. Key vocabulary and thoughts are shared and reflected on and successful use and understanding of new language and perspectives are celebrated.

Impact:

Engaging in high-quality oracy practices during our shared assemblies, cross-phase discussions and class lessons has deepened pupils’ understanding and led to greater knowledge retention, vocabulary acquisition and reasoning skills. Children who may have been reluctant to share their thoughts and ideas are gaining in confidence and all children are being exposed to a richer vocabulary which is impacting on all areas of effective communication.

Phonics

Intent

Our aim at Kingsfleet is to give all children a solid foundation in phonics on which to start their reading journey. This will start in EYFS and will continue throughout KS1 and beyond. Children will be confident in their recognition of phonemes and graphemes and will be able to apply these consistently in their reading and writing.

Implementation

At Kingsfleet we have built a SSP designed to teach all the GPC’s (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence) and to support children in applying their learning. Children will have daily Phonics lessons from Reception where they will be taught the GPC systematically and with pace and rigour. Our scheme focuses on a new GPC taught each day, with a review at the end of each week. Lessons will include the use of flashcards to revise previously taught GPC’s and will teach children to not only recognize the graphemes, but will be able to identify these within words. Children will learn how to spell words by the use of sound buttons and will progress to reading and writing phonetically decodable sentences. The teaching of tricky words will also be included in the daily lessons

In addition to this, throughout EYFS and Y1, phonics activities will be continued in provision, this will enable children to practice and consolidate GPC’s that have been taught. Home/School reading books run in a progressive sequence alongside the phonics lessons so that children can consolidate the GPC’s that have been taught.

Impact

Children at Kingsfleet start learning Phonics from the first few week of Reception, this gives them the building blocks required for reading simple words and will enable them to start reading and spelling simple words quickly. Children continue to build on this throughout Reception and Year 1. In June 2022, 93% of pupils in Y1 met the requirements of the Phonics Screening Check.

Reading

Writing

Intent

At Kingsfleet our aim is to encourage all pupils to be able to write both fluently and effectively in order to convey their thoughts, feelings and knowledge. This ability evolves through the teaching of two main strands

• transcription (spelling and handwriting)

• composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing)

Implementation

Handwriting and spelling, (transcription), are taught weekly throughout the key stages, building on the children;s phonic knowledge and aspiring towards and beyond the appropriate age phase statutory word acquisition.

Composition is being taught through the gradual embedding of a new writing scheme - The Literacy Project’s ‘Pathways to Writing’, in which all children will be exposed to a variety of written texts which exemplify high standards of creative and factual writing, correct use of grammar and a rich and varied vocabulary.

This scheme is cyclic and intertwines all elements of the National Curriculum’s Literacy Framework in a well planned, enjoyable and inspiring manner. It encompasses and promotes cross-curricular themes which give greater purpose and relevance to the childrens’ writing and high-lights the importance of effective written communication to our students. There are numerous opportunities for pupils to plan, revise and evaluate their own writing and the scheme emphasises that effective composition involves articulating and communicating ideas, organising them coherently for a reader and being aware of the audience one is addressing.

Impact

By following ‘Pathways to Writing’ we can see evidence of our pupils’ compositional work improving. In particular Year 3 and Year 4’s understanding and use of vocabulary and their utilisation of expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials and punctuating direct speech is impacting positively in their ability to structure high quality sentences. As the new scheme is introduced and embedded throughout the school by September 2024, it is expected that progress in all pupils’ independent written work will be evident.