English at Grangehurst
At Grangehurst Primary School, we teach English by following the Literacy Tree approach. Literacy Tree is a complete, thematic approach to the teaching of primary English that places literacy at its core. We are immensly proud of the work that our school has done and have recently been invited to write a case study for the Literacy Tree to highligh our innovative use of the book-based approach across school.
How does it work?
Literacy Tree is an award-winning platform, which has designed a curriculum which immerses children in a literary world, therefore creating strong levels of engagement to provide meaningful and authentic contexts for primary English. Children become critical readers and acquire an authorial style as they encounter a wide-range of significant authors and a variety of diverse fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
As a whole-school approach, children explore at least 100 literary texts and experience over 75 unique significant authors as they move through the school. It provides complete coverage of all National Curriculum expectations for writing composition, reading comprehension, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary, as well as coverage of spelling. All plans lead to purposeful application within a wide variety of written outcomes. At our school, the Literacy Tree texts are mapped out to ensure progression and National Curriculum coverage across all year groups.
Grammar and Punctuation
Wherever possible, grammar and punctuation is explored and taught within a real context: this may be done through a quality text that the children are reading, or it could be in the shared writing which all adults model as part of the teaching process.
Spelling
In the EYFS and Year 1, children receive a daily session in phonics. This teaches children to hear, say, read and write the full range of sounds needed to read and write independently.
From Year 2 onwards, children recap their phonics and then are taught the age-appropriate spelling patterns as outlined in the spelling appendix of the National Curriculum. All children are given a set of words to practise spelling and these are tested once a week.
