Literacy Policy 2022 – 2024
Our ethos and beliefs:
At Montalbo, we believe reading is the fundamental building blocks to everything that we learn. We understand the positive importance of daily reading and we strive to create a positive learning culture where reading is loved, enjoyed and part of everyday life. Our school ethos is embedded in our literacy curriculum, and we endeavor in all that we do. We collaborate with each other to share ideas through speaking, and we take time to listen. At Montalbo School, we begin our literacy journey early, immersed in language rich settings and learning to communicate successfully. Our literacy skills progress year on year, developing both our knowledge and skills so that we can become confident, successful communicators.
Approaches:
We have developed many innovative approaches to improve our English curriculum. We have an oracy curriculum from Nursery to Year 6, a Reading Hour with several activities to promote fluency, comprehension and a love of reading. Our text choices are planned and arranged in a sensible order, using classics, modern, diverse and enriching authors. Our story time plans are developing well. Our written work has many examples of superb, beautifully presented extended pieces across a range of genres.
Intent:
- To ensure children learn and remember literacy knowledge.
- To allow children build on prior knowledge through a carefully sequenced and progressive curriculum.
- For all children to speak clearly, fluently and confidently
- For all children to communicate effectively, using talk to explore ideas, thoughts and feelings
- For all children to listen to and to respond to others
- For all children to have a love of reading which will last a life time
- For all children to be confident readers who read widely
- For all children to write creatively and imaginatively across a range of genres
- For all children to write for a variety of audiences and purposes
- For all children to write independently and with confidence
Implementation:
- Staff will use research around cognitive science to help children learn and remember more.
- Staff will check understanding through spaced retrieval exercises.
- A progression of skills and objectives built upon to ensure children will develop as readers and writers
- Daily lessons of reading and writing are taught explicitly to children with a focus on age appropriate objectives
- Daily explicit teaching of handwriting, spellings, phonics and grammar to build basic skills
- Daily opportunities provided for silent, independent reading
- Long term writing plan followed to ensure coverage of genres
- Read Write Inc spelling and grammar scheme used across Key Stage 2
- Recent training on developing Guided Reading
- Show case books implemented to demonstrate writing
- Class novels used across all KS2 classes to promote modelling for reading
- Children will have enrichment experiences to promote speaking and listening and performances
- Visits from authors to promote a love of writing
- Writing for a real life purpose
Impact:
- Children will speak confidently in a range of situations, for different purposes and to different audiences
- Children will develop a love of reading, enhanced by regular library sessions and access to high quality texts
- Children will explain their reading preferences and be familiar with different authors.
- Children will gain new knowledge by reading across the curriculum
- Children will form letters accurately and develop a fluent cursive script, taking pride in their written work
- The majority of children will work at or above age related expectations and all children will make good progress from their starting points
Curriculum content:
Please see medium term yearly overviews for Years 1-6:
