Core Subjects

Reading

Miss S Rennie

English Lead

At Eskdale Academy, ensuring that children leave school as confident readers and writers is seen as non-negotiable. The social context of the school means that the children enter school with a low level of literacy but data shows that they leave with skills on par, or better, than the majority of schools.

Staff at Eskdale Academy always strive to instil a love of Reading in pupils and ensure they can use these skills in a range of different contexts. We believe that the skills developed in English are of paramount importance to the life skills of our pupils. Through the development of reading and writing abilities, children are able to engage in a wider curriculum successfully. Independent reading takes place each day and teachers regularly share high-quality literature with their class in order to expose them to a range of vocabulary, genres and structures. Teachers read daily with children a range of high-quality texts from our reading and poetry spine.

CHILDREN'S READING BOOKS

When learning to read, children read books which are matched to the sounds they have learned. They practise reading these sounds to become more fluent and confident. The books and their progression match the Little Wandle phonics scheme. Books taken home by children should consolidate what has already been taught, retained and secured.

In Key Stage 2, the majority of children choose books based on the Accelerated Reader scheme. They choose from a selection of books before completing quizzes to demonstrate their understanding. A small number of children in Key Stage 2 may still need to access decodable readers. This is monitored and intervention is put in place for those in need of additional support. Furthermore, UKS2 children have access to Reading Plus which focuses on improving fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, stamina and motivation to ensure proficient readers.

READING COMPREHENSION & FLUENCY

Reading is taught three times each week in year 2-6 (unless additional phonics teaching is required). Children in each year group will follow a reading cycle which prioritises fluency, language development and reading comprehension.

The reading comprehension cycle is as follows:

Week 1

Lesson 1 – Accuracy & Pre-vocabulary

Children are exposed to key tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary prior to reading the text in order to support knowledge and understanding. The teacher models the text to the children with a focus on fluency. The children then have opportunities to read in a pair or small group or independently. Each time the children read aloud to support the development of accurate decoding and word recognition.

Lesson 2 – Automaticity & Prosody

Children read the text again as a whole class through choral reading which may include through pairs or small groups as others follow along. The class teacher models reading of the text for prosody – text marking where children need to be aware of phrasing, stress, intonation and punctuation. Children re-read the text with prosody after focus teaching.

Lesson 3 – Low Stakes Response

Children take part in repeated reading of the text using prosody from lesson two. Children discuss the text in more detail through planned questioning to elicit and develop understanding through oracy. Children have opportunities to ask questions to support and consolidate their comprehension knowledge.

Week 2

Lesson 4 – Respond Creatively

Children have the opportunity to respond to the text in a variety of ways, such as through ‘Readers’ Theatre’ where they are given the change to perform the text (or sections of the text) in small groups using the different aspects of prosody which have been taught.

Lesson 5 & 6 – Comprehension

Class teachers plan a variety of questions based on the text for children to answer which cover retrieval, vocabulary, inference and summary. Questions are from the domains of reading and are presented in a variety of ways. Through planned sequencing, all questions types are covered throughout the academic year. The first set of questions are discussed as a class and the teacher models how to answer each question. In lesson six, the questions are conducted with more independence and feedback is shared with children (or groups/individuals) to address any misconceptions.

READING FOR PLEASURE

Reading for pleasure is encouraged and fostered in a variety of ways across school. In English, work is planned with focus on class texts to engage all children and inspire a love of books and learning across the curriculum. All classes have access to our library which helps to promote the importance of books. Children are able to choose books from the library to take and read.

We have developed our ‘Reading & Poetry Spine’ to support and promote reading for pleasure across school. Each day, children are read to by their class teachers; books have been chosen to reflect the diverse world we live in. Additionally, in order to develop reading further, we have threaded a range of key authors throughout our reading spine who will inspire and engage children on their reading journey.

Writing

Miss S Rennie

English Lead

At Eskdale Academy, we want to ensure that children are able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing and reach their full potential.

Staff at Eskdale Academy believe and understand that reading and writing are inextricably linked. Children are exposed to a wide range of genres when writing and are taught the key features of texts in order to help them to produce their own. Children develop their skills progressively. SPaG elements are taught both as part of the writing cycle, if appropriate, or stand-alone. Eskdale Academy follow the Hartlepool agreed document for spelling. Our handwriting policy is adapted to be taught using skills from Letter Join. Letter Join is a whole school handwriting scheme offering a combination of traditional and digital resources to enable children to develop a consistent script and build speed and stamina.

Phonics

Miss Thomas

Early Reading Lead

We aim to teach high quality phonics to ensure the children have the best start possible in reading and writing. Phonics is an essential part of learning to read and write.

Good quality phonic teaching secures the skills of word recognition and decoding which allow children to read fluently. This will result in children being able to read for pleasure, and then move onto children developing comprehension skills.

We encourage repetition and consolidation, so that spelling becomes automatic.

These phonic skills need to be taught systematically in an interactive and exciting way and allow children to apply their phonic skills in all curriculum areas.

At Eskdale Academy, we follow the Sounds-Write scheme and phonics is largely taught through whole-class teaching with inclusive high-quality teaching for all. If required, some children may access additional intervention to support them reaching age-related expectations. This may be through a pre-teach or post-teach session on the day of teaching or through small group work to practise and consolidate previous learning.

At times, some children may need a more personalised and individual level of support offered to them. All interventions follow the Sounds-Write teaching methods and programme.

CHILDREN'S READING BOOKS

When learning to read, children read books which are matched to the sounds they have learned. They practise reading these sounds to become more fluent and confident. The books and their progression match the Sounds-Write phonics scheme which is used across school. Books taken home by children should consolidate what has already been taught, retained and secured.

Maths

Maths

Mr B Goodwin

Maths Lead

At Eskdale Academy we see Maths very much as a multi-discipline, cross curricular, interconnected subject which should encourage creativity.

As much revolves around the discussion about Maths between talk partners as it does the completion of calculations. We want the children to see Mathematics as being relevant to their world and applicable to everyday life as well as being something that they will need as they move on through their school life and ultimately to the world of employment.

To that end, a high-quality, inter-related and creative Maths experience should be one that develops the children’s ability to think mathematically and one which allows them to apply the tools to which they have been exposed in a variety of ways.