Core Subjects
Reading
Mr Marshall
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.
- Intent - Implementation - Impact - Reading and Phonics
- Reading Policy - 2025-26
- Y1 Reading Poetry Spine
- Y2 Reading Poetry Spine
- Y3 Reading Poetry Spine
- Y4 Reading Poetry Spine
- Y5 Reading Poetry Spine
- Y6 Reading Poetry Spine
- YN Reading Poetry Spine
- YR Reading Poetry Spine
Writing
Mr Marshall
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.
- Handwriting Policy - 2025-26
- Intent - Implementation - Impact - Writing and SL
- SPAG Policy 2025-26
- Writing policy 2025-26
Phonics
Miss Thomas
Early Reading Lead
At Eskdale academy, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
As a result, our children have strategies to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Eskdale Academy, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects. In Early Years, we follow the foundations for language aspect of Little Wandle, which advises practitioners on strategies to promote language and conversation, which are considered pre-phonics skills.
Comprehension
At Eskdale Academy, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.
Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ programme.
Early Reading & Phonics Implementation
Foundations for Phonics in Nursery
We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
- sharing high-quality stories and poems
- learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
- activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending and tuning into sounds.
- attention to high-quality language.
We strive to ensure all Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.
Daily Phonics in Reception & Year 1
Phonics is taught for 10-30 minutes every day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
Children make a strong start in Reception where teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
As a school, we follow the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ expectations of progress:
- In Reception, children are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- In Year 1, children review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
Keeping-up Sessions
Any child who needs additional practice has daily keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
We also timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or Year 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the keep-up resources – at pace.
If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.
Teaching Reading
We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week.
The reading practice sessions:
- are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
- use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ assessments and book matching grids.
- are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
- decoding
- prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books. There are also opportunities for children who are not blending to read wordless books.
In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
Consistency & Pace of Progress
Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load. Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme. Lesson templates, prompt cards and ‘how to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
The Reading Leader and SLT use the audit and prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning. Regular staff meetings on phonics allow staff to keep upto date with phonics teaching and provide CPD based on the reading leaders monitoring.
Early Reading and Phonics Impact
Assessment
Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.
Assessment for learning is used:
- daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
- weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
Summative assessment is used:
- every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
- by SLT and scrutinised through the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.
Statutory Assessment
- Children in Y1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Y2.
Ongoing assessment for catch-up
- Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment as well as through the half-termly ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ summative assessments.
Supporting Reading at Home
The decodable reading practice book is available to children as an e-book, to ensure success is shared with the family. We use the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.
Maths
Maths
Mr B Goodwin
Maths Lead