At Broughton Community Schools, we want to raise the literacy achievement of children by putting quality children’s literature at the heart of all learning. The culture of every classroom encourages children to be curious and to consciously use language to think, explore, reflect and communicate effectively.

Our curriculum is designed to become the ‘windows and mirrors’ for our children, to offer a view of our diverse world and to support them to be confident and competent learners. 

Our curriculum

Writing

At Broughton Community Schools, we use CLPE The Power of Reading approach to introduce a high-quality text (linked to their topic where possible) and plan a sequence of lessons to build towards an extended piece of writing.

Successful writing always starts with a clear understanding of audience and purpose. We use James Durran’s approach to Boxed Criteria to identify the audience and purpose for the written outcome. From this, the desired ‘effect on the reader’ is established, linked then to the language, grammar and writing structures required to achieve this.

Using The Power of Reading approach as our guide, we adapt the planning to work alongside our Broughton writing process. This process is used from Year 1 – Year 6 and altered to meet the needs of Reception. It is followed to create every written outcome.

Our Broughton writing process is as follows:

• Hook and Explore

• Planning

• Writing

• Edit and Revise

• Publish

The process begins with a hook to engage our children and launch the new unit of work. Next, the children explore the language features of the text. Then, our pupils plan their text type and write independently after high-quality modelling from the class teacher. The children have the opportunity to edit and revise their work which is integral if any student is to make sustained improvement towards their own ‘mastery model’.  This aspect of the process is also modelled by the class teacher. Finally, the children publish or present their work, taking pride in their final outcome.

Spelling

At Broughton Community Schools, we use the Little Wandle programme in Years 2 and 3 to provide consistency after Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised. This supports children to build the alphabetic code with the spelling programme which provides a seamless link from the core Little Wandle phonics programme to learning spelling. All spelling lessons follow the familiar structure of Little Wandle phonics lessons, supporting children to make links to their phonics learning. Lessons build on prior knowledge to ensure children always start from a point of secure understanding.

In Years 4 to 6, we use the Spelling Shed programme, which provides a comprehensive yet accessible pathway for progression. The approach involves not only the relationship between graphemes and phonemes but also uses morphology and etymology to help spell through meaning. Guidance, rather than prescription, is provided on how to teach the strategies, knowledge and skills pupils need to learn. It is expected that assessment and teacher judgement will identify the starting point for each child. 

For children who need additional support, a phonics assessment may be carried out and the children would receive phonics intervention in line with the Little Wandle programme used in KS1. 

Handwriting

We teach handwriting using the Kinetic Letters Handwriting Programme. Handwriting comprises physical and cognitive skills that need to be learnt and become part of the automatic cognitive skill set of the pupil. 

The programme has four threads.

• Making bodies stronger
• Holding the pencil (for speed, comfort and legibility)
• Learning the letters
• Flow and fluency 

 The key principles of the programme are:

• Building physical strength underpins handwriting and concentration. This knowledge informs the working positions that children use for writing and the strengthening targets they work on.
• Pupils are not expected to do anything before they are developmentally ready for it.
• The different components of writing are mastered individually before being used in combination.
• Letters are learnt as movements, not as visual shapes, and movement remains central to developing automaticity in letter formation, flow and fluency.
• Posture is important in developing the correct position for handwriting and so children are taught how to organise their working position and paper position to enable comfortable and fluent writing from the start.
• Correct pencil hold is taught from the start (ie as soon as a tripod grip is developmentally appropriate), and the strength is developed to maintain this, enabling comfort, speed and writing stamina.

How can you support your children at home?

Children are given spellings to practice each week at home. There are online games which are designed to be used at home to support children with their weekly spellings. Parents and carers should also practise the weekly spellings each day for 10 minutes at home to consolidate children’s understanding.

Children who need support with their handwriting will be given Kinetic Letters home learning worksheets. Parents and carers should support children to complete these activities so their handwriting is joined consistently.