English

 English at The Levels 

At The Levels we expect all English teaching to: 

 

• Have clear learning objectives, with carefully planned activities that enable pupils to achieve the intended learning outcome according to their individual need 

• Give opportunities for speaking and listening and language acquisition. Repetition is key for the children to learn, retain and recall new skills. 

• Have questions of different levels and styles with opportunities for pupils to confer and discuss their ideas enabling students of all abilities to access 

• Use high quality texts and visual literacy. 

• Have interesting and varied activities to support the acquisition of reading, spelling and writing skills 

• Provide opportunities for all pupils to use, apply and deepen their reading, spelling and writing skills. 

• Have opportunities for assessment for learning  

• Allow for discussion of misconceptions. 

 

Reading 

When is reading taught? 

Pupils access a daily reading lesson which covers the learning of intended outcomes for the day. 

Phonics is taught daily 

An adult reads the class book aloud every day during book club and there are regular opportunities for children to read their banded book to an adult. 

Resources for reading 

Teachers use objectives from the National Curriculum to aid planning for their pupils. We have a vast array of phonics based banded books for individual reading and phonics based guided reading books. Our Reading Curriculum is rooted in a wide range of high-quality visual literacy, picture books, extracts from novels, poetry, song lyrics and non-fiction texts. Class books are selected by the class teacher and always provide a level of challenge. 

 

How do we assess in reading?  

There is ongoing assessment by teachers and teaching assistants during phonics, spelling and reading lessons and during individual reading. Assessment for Learning is used to assess learning as we believe that feedback at the point of learning has the biggest impact on a pupil’s progress.  

   

Spelling  

When is spelling taught?  

 This is taught during the daily phonics lesson. Regular assessments take place during these times and also during reading / writing tasks.  

For many of our students spelling is incredibly difficult and support strategies are put in place for them to be able to access the curriculum.  

We believe that feedback at the point of learning has the biggest impact on a pupil’s progress. 

 

 Writing 

When is writing taught? 

Students access writing across our setting in a variety of ways. Many have been traumatised by previous writing approaches and we have to build up their confidence in this area.  

We do this through different approaches and giving the students time, encouragement and positive feedback. Improvement areas are dealt with in a sensitive manner, directly with the student and with trusted adults.  

Some of our students require a scribe for longer pieces of work, for others it is giving them a longer period to complete a task.  

We foster enjoyment of writing through modelling, shared, peer and individual tasks.  

 

How do we assess in writing? 

This is continually being assessed and feedback given.