English

english

what do we say about english at dean bank

Jessica Y6 – “I like writing narratives best and I particularly enjoy when we get to write stories about whatever we want.”

Annalise Y4 – “I really like reading about different characters and then creating my own.”

Connor Y2 – “I like writing because it’s fun. I really enjoyed writing about Black History Month.”

intent

At Dean Bank Primary School, we believe that reading, writing and spoken communication are key life skills that every child should develop so they are prepared for the next steps in their learning. We use the English curriculum (using cross curricular links where appropriate) to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding that will enable our pupils to communicate effectively and creatively in spoken and written forms.

We strive for our pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information; acquire a wide vocabulary; develop a secure understanding of English grammar and punctuation; and acquire a knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.

Our English long term planning includes a wide range of texts to support children’s understanding of social and ethical issues, their understanding of specific authors, a range of cultures, language and vocabulary development and appreciation of classic texts. We aim for our pupils to develop mastery of the curriculum content for their year group and be confident enough to be able to apply the skills taught in English lessons in their other subjects.

We strive for children to become more independent writers who develop confidence with the editing and redrafting process and can use self and peer assessment to reflect on their own and others’ writing.

IMPLEMENTATION

Reading in EYFS

Reading is a fundamental part of our early years teaching and learning.

Our daily phonics teaching follows the Sounds-Write scheme. We use Sounds-Write books for the formal, structured teaching of reading, but we also use a range of texts with children such as during story time sessions, 1to1 and guided reading, incidental reading activities and structured taught stories. Children take decodable books home from school appropriate to their reading level in addition to a picture book as a ‘reading for pleasure’ book.

We have a long-term plan for reading in EYFS, which is divided into key texts, rhyme and refrain and nursery rhymes. The key texts will be used for some of our adult-led activities and enhanced provision and there will be other books that are simply read for pleasure to the children by an adult. Children also take part in regular singing sessions to support their language development and knowledge of a range of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

Writing in EYFS

Writing in EYFS is sometimes adult-led and sometimes child-initiated. At the start of the year, we focus on sequencing and retelling stories orally and then transition into writing initial sounds, words and sentences when appropriate.

Adult-led tasks are based upon Drawing Club which involves a short period of time together as a whole class followed by time with children exploring their ideas and creativity. Each week, the teacher introduces 8 key vocabulary words linked to the story of the week with each word having an action to help children to remember the word. By the end of the year, the children will be drawing pictures linked to the text with sentences as captions. Letter-join is used to introduce correct letter formation and this is practised on a daily basis.

Planning

We carry out planning in English in the long term and then short term. The National Curriculum for English details what we teach in the long-term and teachers complete a long-term plan for the year, supported by the subject leader, to ensure that all areas of the National Curriculum are covered. This indicates our class novels for each term as well as the intended vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and grammar objectives that are intended to be taught in each unit of work.

Class teachers complete a weekly (short-term) plan for the teaching of English. This lists the specific learning objectives and expected outcomes for each lesson and gives details of how the lessons are to be taught. It also includes details of how lessons are adapted to meet children’s needs and how the class novel will be used to develop children’s skills to build towards extended pieces of writing at least once every two weeks. Before the final piece of writing, children will complete practice pieces to work on particular skills. A reading lesson is expected on at least a weekly basis but we also teach reading through whole class reading and phonics sessions that sit outside of the English lesson. We include starter tasks to teach spelling, punctuation and grammar objectives at the start of each lesson.

Whole Class Reading Lessons

Whole class reading sessions take place on a regular basis. Whole class reading will usually include 2 sessions per week when a fiction text is read and discussed as a class (usually the class novel in KS2), 1 session based on reading poetry, 1 session reading non-fiction texts and there may be another session to practise more traditional comprehension style questions. The non-fiction texts and poems used will often link to the class text or previously taught topics but sometimes texts will be chosen because they are of a high quality and provide opportunities to develop specific skills or vocabulary.

The example below outlines what a typical whole class reading lesson at Dean Bank should contain:

Activation of prior knowledge
Vocabulary introduction
Teacher reading and modelling fluency
Fluency focused work (e.g. fluency grid, echo read, choral read, timed read)
Summarising / recalling key points from the text
Whole class discussion and questioning based on a range of question types
Children may then answer further questions on paper although it may all be verbal

Writing Lessons

The example below outlines what a typical writing unit at Dean Bank should contain:

Week one: reading and analysing texts, practising key grammatical and punctuation skills needed for the writing unit.
Week two: planning, writing and editing a text.

Each writing lesson should consist of teacher modelling, discussion of success criteria and opportunities for children to practise skills verbally before writing. Proofreading and editing should take place regularly throughout the piece of writing and not be left until the writing is ‘finished’. Children should have access to their writing targets throughout the writing process so they know what they are aiming to achieve.

Oracy

Our children generally start school with low baseline scores in Communication and Language and Literacy. We aim to provide a language-rich environment in early years to support development in all areas of Communication, Language and Literacy and ensure that staff model high standards of English to help the pupils to learn new vocabulary and standard English grammar.

As pupils move through school, they will be provided with regular opportunities to develop their oracy skills such as role play, discussions and debates. Children are encouraged to give clear answers to questions to show high standards of oracy and are challenged to improve their answers if needed.

It is vital that all of our staff promote high standards of spoken English so children are using it themselves, resulting in the use of Standard English in their speech, writing and the development of their vocabulary. Vocabulary is also developed in foundation subjects as children learn new subject specific vocabulary, which is identified on sequence planners and then introduced at the start of each lesson. Children are then expected to use this vocabulary when answering questions or completing written responses to demonstrate their knowledge.

Poetry

We have a poetry LTP which identifies the core poems that each class will cover in two aspects: those poems that will be studied as a class and those that are designed to be read aloud and learnt by heart. The poems have been carefully selected to ensure a range of poets and styles of poem are included and that the complexity is progressive across school. The poetry LTP is then supplemented by some of the classes/ class teachers’ own choices of poems based on children’s interests, topics and particular features that they wish to develop.

IMPACT

Writing

Teachers assess children’s work in English in different phases. The short-term assessments that teachers make as part of every lesson help them to adjust their lesson plans to adapt their plans to the needs of the children. Feedback is given to help guide children’s progress and as much of this as possible is given verbally (see feedback section of teaching and learning policy). Pupils are also encouraged to review their own work and that of their peers, offering feedback with suggestions for improvements.

At Dean Bank Primary School, teachers use writing assessment sheets to monitor whether children are meeting age-related expectations and set targets to ensure progression. Pupils are given copies of their targets so they can always refer to these before completing a piece of writing. Children then self-assess against these targets whenever they complete an extended piece of writing and a copy of their targets is stuck into their book for teachers to review.

Teachers make more formal assessments about the standard of pupils’ work at the end of each half term to inform their planning and then termly assessments are reported to the Head Teacher and Senior Leadership Team. Several examples of writing are used for teachers to formulate a judgement about the child’s confidence with the curriculum and assess whether the child is meeting age-related expectations. The staff moderate writing regularly in staff meetings in order for the SLT to gain a better understanding of progress across the school and ensure that assessment judgements are accurate. This also allows staff to gain a greater understanding of expectations in different year groups and comparisons can be made to better inform judgements.

Reading

Children’s reading progress is also regularly monitored by class teachers in different ways. On a day-to-day basis, written records of reading comments from individuals are kept in files. Pupils complete reading comprehension tasks in their English lessons and staff use these to make informal assessments about their comprehension levels. Furthermore, staff regularly listen to children read aloud and this is used to monitor their fluency as well as comprehension skills through teacher questioning.

Staff may use informal reading assessments to give them a better understanding of how their pupils are progressing and provide children with practice of test style conditions. At the end of each term, staff use the standardised NTS assessments from Hachette Learning as a more formal reading comprehension test to support their teacher assessments of a child’s reading standard and whether they are meeting age-related expectations.

planning

Poetry LTP

English Texts LTP 2025 – 2026

reading and phonics

For more information regarding Reading and Phonics please click here.

guided reading

prepositions

English in action

Free Writing Day

For the last English lesson of the term, we had a ‘Free Writing Day’ where the children could write about anything that they wanted. It could be fiction or non-fiction and about any topic. Many chose to base their writing on Halloween as it was also non-uniform day with the children dressing up in Halloween costumes. The children really responded well to the freedom of being able to write whatever they wanted and produced some very spooky stories, setting descriptions and interesting fact files amongst others!

Scholastic Book Fair

Thank you so much for all of the support with our Scholastic Book Fair. We managed to earn an amazing £177.32 in rewards to spend on books for school!

This money will be used to buy some of the most popular books from the fair for the school libraries and book corners.

It’s been such a success that I’m sure we’ll organise it again for next year!

Y1 Library Visit

Our Y1 children had a brilliant afternoon visiting Ferryhill library. They listened to some stories, did an activity and had some time to explore some of the books that interested them. They can’t wait to go again!

National Poetry Day

For National Poetry Day this year, the theme was ‘Refuge’ and each class read a poem or selection of poems about this.

Some classes then created their own versions of poems and others discussed them in detail to ensure everyone understood the message behind the poems.

Roald Dahl Day

Every year, on 13th September, we celebrate one of our best loved authors – Roald Dahl. This year, the children were invited to dress up as Roald Dahl characters or wear yellow which was Roald Dahl’s favourite colour. We had an assembly about why Roald Dahl is so special and then each class completed some activities linked to Roald Dahl stories including artwork of the enormous crocodile in EYFS and persuasive writing and speeches linked to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Y4.