Writing Recovery Curriculum
In the event of school closures, an ‘English Recovery Curriculum’ will be followed until children have ‘caught up’ in their learning. The following strategies will be used to ensure children recover from any missed learning time due to school:
As a Trust, we have streamlined the National Curriculum for English for all year groups (1-6). This has been undertaken to allow our schools and individual teaching staff to prioritise key objectives that must be rigorously taught to ensure children secure the most essential knowledge and skills by the end of the year - whilst also providing sufficient time for ‘catch-up’ and targeted provision based on the time children have been out of school due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Previous year’s objectives will also be considered when planning English lessons. The key objectives are to be the focal point of all planning for each year group and regular assessment (both formative and summative) will be based upon these. Those that have not been identified as ‘key’ can still be taught across the year at a teacher’s discretion but are ultimately based on the needs of the children in their class.
Writing
The Teaching of Writing
Children are to continue to write using the school’s ‘writing cycle’ model. Teachers are to prioritise the key writing objectives outlined and meet them through focused, concise pieces of writing. There is no expectation on children regularly completing longer, sustained pieces of writing across the year. The writing cycle will balance the need for children to read, discuss, plan (where appropriate), write and edit their work regularly. It is expected that children produce a minimum of 4 separate pieces of writing over the course of six weeks. Cross-curricular writing (e.g. in science and history) is encouraged and should be produced in writing books.
Cross Trust Writing Moderation
In order to support our own moderation process, all curriculum maps now contain two pieces of topic-related writing which must be completed by all schools within our Trust over the course of a term (6 pieces over a year). This will support teachers and English Leads when making judgements based on the writing indicators for each year group. Examples of these are to be shown at Cross-Trust moderations which will benefit professional discussion and confidence when assessing children. Other pieces may be presented as part of a professional discussion about a child’s ability.
Spelling
Baseline Assessments
On their return in September, all children from Years 2 to 6 are to complete the Summer PiXL Spelling Assessment. On its completion, teachers are to populate the data from the tests for each child into the PiXL Question-Level Analysis spreadsheet to highlight gaps in their spelling knowledge from the test they have taken.
All children who are GREEN/BLUE in writing according to your year group’s Combined Tracking Sheet are to complete the previous year group’s summer assessment. All children classified as YELLOW in writing are to complete the year group preceding this (e.g. a GREEN/BLUE child starting Year 6 will complete the Year 5 summer assessment; a YELLOW child will complete the Year 4 assessment). The data from these assessments will determine the next steps for all children in conjunction with the Spelling Recovery Flowchart.
RED children are working significantly below the expectations for their age and the Catch-up Premium should prioritise this group with bespoke, targeted interventions.
Note: Year 2 children scoring below 25% on the Year 1 paper may need to complete a Phonics Screening Check to further assess their learning needs.
Teaching of Spelling
Teachers are to use the objectives for each year group (taken from the Hartlepool scheme where examples of words and further information can be found) whilst being mindful of the previous year group objectives. Spelling should be taught discretely every day.