English

Writing

At Atlas, we aim to deliver an engaging, exciting curriculum that helps develop a love of writing that inspires children to want to write and take pride in their work. Across school, children access learning through the award-winning Literary Tree Curriculum, a complete book-based approach designed to teach pupils literacy skills through high-quality texts. These books have been selected very carefully as the right book will help connect individuals; it will answer ‘bigger’ questions about the world in which we live, and it will help us to empathise and reflect. The best books are those that reflect our realities through metaphor, imagery and themes that resonate with all of our experiences. Teaching through a text creates a consistent, cohesive approach to literacy across the school and is underpinned by these 8 ‘active ingredients’:

Embed the teaching of comprehension, grammar, spelling & vocabulary and literary language within the context of the text.
Make the audience and purpose clear and use this to inform grammar and vocabulary choices. Genres are revisited and embedded through shorter written outcomes throughout a unit.
Ensure pupils revisit, develop and consolidate skills across a range of contexts over time.
Opportunities for practice, not perfection. Our pupils will use engaging materials to see the purpose of writing such as post cards, shopping lists, labels and letters.
Plan and teach with our pupils’ starting points in mind.
Make links between prior and new learning (and between texts) explicit. Vocabulary and background knowledge are also revisited and applied as our chosen books link to our Primary Knowledge Curriculum topics for Science, History, Art and DT. This ensures that our pupils have opportunities to apply prior learning within their English lessons, therefore building their engagement and confidence.
Expose our pupils to live modelling of the writing process.
Formatively assess to actively identify and address gaps and misconceptions, and move our pupils on.

Reading

At Atlas, we aim for our pupils to have a true love of reading and whilst we want to unleash the joy that reading brings, decoding must be mastered first. After our phonics and early reading teaching (see separate section on our website) our pupils will move onto our Trust’s approach to reading lessons using high quality texts that link in with our other curriculum areas. This enables our pupils to bring their prior knowledge and vocabulary with them.

We follow a 3-day/2-day structure where we teach using a high-quality text for 3 days and then use non-fiction and poetry books and extracts for the other two days. These are mapped out ensuring breadth of coverage and appropriately pitched resources across Years 2-6 (after completing the Read Write Inc. programme)

Class story time

This is vitally important as it is strictly ring-fenced and delivered consistently across all classes daily. Our pupils hear uninterrupted, high-quality texts for 15 minutes deliver in an engaging manner by the class teacher.

Individual reading

Two 15-minute sessions per week are dedicated to individual reading. This is a time for our pupils to enjoy their chosen book on their own and to read to adults in class. During this time, they are also supported to change and choose appropriate home reading books to enjoy with their parents and carers.

English Core Text Curriculum Map 2023-2024

Reading Curriculum Core Text Map 2023-24