

Writing
At the Darley and Summerbridge Federation, we endeavour to create a love for literacy and to develop each child’s author voice.
We want every child to leave with the skills they need to write, using the structure and organisation to suit their genre. Within this, we want them to leave the school with a challenging and sophisticated bank of vocabulary and excellent knowledge of writing techniques to use in both fact and
fiction work. Our aim is to have each child displaying excellent transcription skills making their work well presented, punctuated, spelt correctly and neat. The use of edits and re-reads being used to improve theirfinal writing to the best of their individual abilities.
To achieve all this we implement the following:
We pride ourselves on immersing the children with good quality literature from a wide range of sources.
We expect the highest standards of writing every time a child writes in any subject.
Units of work are planned in each Key Stage which challenge and build on prior knowledge and skills. These consider the needs of each group of learners and those pupils with individual needs.
Units of work cover all the genres within KS1 and KS2 thus providing a range of writing opportunities.
Lessons are adapted as necessary to meet the needs of our mixed age classes.
English skills progression documents are used to ensure that pupils build on the knowledge and skills required within each year group.
SPAG is taught both discretely and within English writing units to enable long term memory acquisition.
Opportunities are built into the planning cycle to enable pupils to revisit their knowledge and skills to ensure long term memory acquisition.
Each child’s progress is tracked using an assessment grid produced for each year group.
Reading
In our federation, we value reading as the most import skill to being ‘a lifelong learner’.
We believe that this skill is essential for academic success. In our federation we have a holistic approach to teaching reading. This process begins in our Pre- School and continues throughout our key stages. Our intent is that all pupils will leave our school as competent readers with a love of reading.
We provide them with the skills they need to discuss books with their peers and use them as a tool for further education. We also ensure that language is discussed and the impact of chosen language on the reader.
We strive to ensure that we have a holistic approach to the teaching of reading, we implement the following:
Pupils take part in Guided Reading lessons, where children are exposed to a range of different texts
and can demonstrate their understanding and thinking.
We are very lucky to have a wide range of reading books in our school which support and match our SSP. All children from EYFS to Year 6 choose a reading book to take home.
Each classroom will have a selection of books in their classroom which are directly linked with the class topic. This offers opportunities for the pupils to apply their reading skills across the curriculum.
Pupils are read to often by their class teacher.
Pupils who are not yet ‘free readers’, will work through our school reading scheme– these are levelled books which match the children’s current reading age.
We expect family at home to read these books with their child daily and make comments in their child’s
reading record.





