Deal Parochial C of E Primary School understands the need for all pupils to develop their spoken language, reading, writing and understanding of grammar as an essential component of all subjects and as a subject in its own right. A good understanding of Literacy skills is a basis to fully accessing all other areas of the curriculum.

Aims

Our aims in teaching Literacy are that all children should:

• Have an interest in books and read for enjoyment.
• Be encouraged to read a varied selection of texts whilst gaining an increased level of fluency and understanding.
• Develop a range of reading strategies for approaching reading: using and applying phonological, contextual, grammatical and graphic knowledge.
• Practise strategies to enable reading to be used as a means of gathering information to support their learning throughout the entire curriculum
• Read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding, and deploy a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct.
• Have opportunities to write for different purposes, contexts and audiences, including themselves.
• Develop an awareness of the conventions of grammar, punctuation and spelling as they progress through the school.
• Develop an interest in words, their meanings and to develop a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms.
• Develop a fluent and legible, cursive handwriting style with correctly formed letters.
• Develop their oral abilities and an ability to speak clearly. Engage in productive group discussions with confidence and a knowledge of what constitutes effective communication.
• Express opinions, articulate feelings and formulate appropriate responses to increasingly complex questions and instructions.

Writing

We aim to develop the children’s ability to produce well-structured, detailed writing in which the meaning is clear and which engages the interest of the reader. We focus on the formal structures of English, grammatical detail, punctuation and spelling. We follow the Talk for Writing teaching sequence developed by Pie Corbett. This approach is now fully embedded across the school with children being able to write for a number of different purposes and audiences within different subjects. The process starts with a creative hook, to engage the children into a particular theme or object that is being used to inspire a piece of writing. The Talk for Writing teaching sequence is built on three stages of teaching: Imitation Phase: The children learn a text and the language that they need to use. Innovation: The children adapt the model text with their own ideas. Invention: The children create their own text using the language and skills that they have learnt from teacher modelling and guided and shared writing sessions. Teachers model a range of writing strategies in shared and guided writing sessions in order to demonstrate the expectations we have for each unit of work. Teachers engage the children collaboratively to model how phonics and spelling strategies can be used during these sessions. A long-term plan has been developed to map out the texts, genre and the specific focus for each unit; character, setting, suspense and so on. This allows teachers to ensure that there is a good coverage of genres covered within each Key Stage, allowing the children to develop their writing style. It also informs teachers what their past learning has been, and to recap key literary features that they will need to include in their writing.

Reading

We consider reading is the heart of education and the key to independent learning. At Deal Parochial we want our children to be confident, competent readers who see it as a valuable, worthwhile and enjoyable activity – not just children who can read.

Reading is placed at the heart of our curriculum at Deal Parochial CEP School and learning is brought alive through a wide range high quality literature both within our school library and as part of the taught curriculum in class.

Through our curriculum, we strive to give our children opportunities to gain an understanding of social and cultural differences which they can identify with and learn more about what is happening in the world around them. We do this through offering a wide range of genres and through ensuring that the books available to the children accurately and sensitively represent children with differing needs, different cultures and in different family settings.

Reading for pleasure contributes to educational success and it is our aim that through encouraging reading and language the children will become not only confident readers but develop a love for reading and support them through their learning journeys.

Teachers model good reading within their classes through regular class stories and poetry, reading events throughout the year, giving the children time to read for enjoyment each day and also having opportunities to listen to stories being read to them.

Children are initially taught to read through synthetic phonics (Little Wandle) and then move onto books that link with the phonics being taught in class. As they move through KS1 the children read books that have a mix of phonically decodable words as well as exposing them to age appropriate CEW words.

Handwriting

We support the children to develop fluent, clear and legible joined up writing. Children in EYFS begin to learn how the letters are formed as they begin their Phase 2 work looking at individual graphemes and then moving on to consonant and vowel digraphs. They initially learn to print as we follow the Little Wandle SSP scheme and then in term 4, we slowly introduce the cursive script. Over the year, the children will learn how to reduce the size of their letters and look at how they sit on writing lines. As the children move into Year 1, the children develop their pre- cursive skills further and are introduced to fully cursive script in the summer term of Year 1. Cursive writing skills are consolidated further in Year 2, with emphasis on how to form the strokes needed for joining their letters.

The children continue to use the cursive script throughout Key Stage 2. All children are expected to sit correctly, with all four legs and feet on the floor and their bodies close to the table that they are sitting at. We also encourage the children to hold their paper with their non-writing hand with the correct pencil grip. For children who display incorrect grip of their pencils. We support children who struggle with the correct grip by offering different grips for them to use. If children require additional support with their handwriting, the children are placed in small intervention groups where the children will receive further instruction from a member of support staff. The additional practice will allow the children to secure the movements necessary to form the letters or joins and work towards their clear and legible handwriting that they can they apply across all of their learning.

The 3 Is

Intention

In Literacy, our school aims:

• To ensure that children will leave Deal Parochial School with a love and appetite for reading for pleasure and learning about books and their connection to the world.
•  To expose the children to a wide genre of literature and poetry, with the intention of developing their personal interests and an awareness of the variety of authors and poets.
•  To develop oral story telling skills to underpin and improve story writing skills throughout the school
•  To improve the children’s phonics skills and their confidence in applying this to their reading and writing. We intend to use Phonics Tracker/LW tracker to closely monitor the acquisition of specific phonemes, predominantly in KS1.
• To develop a love for the English language in its written and spoken forms. We encourage children to develop skills to communicate confidently and effectively in writing. We aim to provide an environment for language development and written work, which is stimulating and is characterised by high expectations of success so that the fullest potential of each individual child may be realised. We recognise that writing is a pre-requisite for educational and social progress. Writing also empowers pupils to communicate both creatively and imaginatively.
•  To encourage the progression and development of each child’s handwriting into a fluent, legible and individual style that can be adapted for a range of purposes. This will also aid their spelling and composition and we use cursive handwriting as our writing style. This ensures that there is a continuity of handwriting style from Early Years Foundation Stage through to the end of Key Stage 2. It enables the children to develop a neat style and supports the acquisition of a kinaesthetic memory to encourage accurate spelling. For dyslexic children, it promotes making links to words as whole units. We believe that joined cursive handwriting supports: correct letter formation, clearer spacing, improved spelling and increased speed.

Implementation

We will do this by:

• Developing the children’s discussion around choice and preferences of books whilst reading in a social environment. Also, utilising D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything and Read), book corners, favourite authors and least favourite, genres and best places and times to read at home.
• Introducing whole school story telling days (based on Pie Corbett principles) with an emphasis on oracy as a foundation for subsequent writing. We facilitated the publishing of these story books.
•  Implementing Little Wandle SSP which ensures intensive, consistent teaching across the school (with all staff trained), providing many opportunities for application of knowledge. Regular reviews assess children and if needed, there are robust intervention protocols to ensure children keep up. Catch up programs are consistent across the school. Efficient tracking and regular monitoring allow SLT to oversee the whole school progress.
•  Using the Pie Corbett Talk for Writing and Storytelling techniques throughout the school as a model with which to teach writing. The importance of being able to speak their writing before writing it, is crucial in both fiction, non-fiction and poetry writing and involves techniques such as story maps, boxing up ideas into paragraphs as well as literacy games to develop vocabulary. All classes follow the structure of imitation, innovation and independent writing with all units of work to ensure progression.
•  Continuation of whole school Extended Writing Weeks, using Pie Corbett methods to orally practise story telling skills, leading to writing own versions of stories (Innovation and Independent Application). Emphasis on writing for enjoyment (with strong scaffolding present in terms of the underlying story patterning) rather than particular success criteria and rigid direction.
•  Teaching and modelling of cursive handwriting in marking and teaching from Reception and throughout Key Stage 1 (KS1) and Key Stage 2 (KS2). Teachers focus on pencil and pen control, grip and posture in helping pupils to develop a legible cursive style. Teachers identify left-handed pupils in their class. Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage are involved in a variety of activities to develop their physical development. Various activities are used in EYFS to support development in their fine motor skills.

Impact

The result of this is:

• Children are more aware of their reading preferences and can articulate this. Children enthusiastically visit the school library to choose reading books recommended by their peers.
•  Children are able to recommend their favourite poems to present in whole school celebrations of poetry and enjoy the exposure to the other classes’ performances. Many children have a wide repertoire of poetry and knowledge of poets.
•   Children enjoy these days, their story telling skills are improved and good quality books are produced.
•  An improvement in the Year 1 Phonic screening check and general end of year levels in KS1. We are envisaging that improving the skills in KS1 will allow these children when in KS2, to be able to access the age appropriate curriculum with no barriers in their reading and writing.
•  Improved quality of writing in different genres across all cohorts within the school. The use of text maps has been noted, to be particularly successful with boys, who are our focus for improvement.
•  Sharing of good practice amongst staff. Extended Writing Days have been very popular with children. Teachers shared work at staff meeting and show cased work of an excellent quality with a clear progression of skills throughout the key stages. Children and staff keen to repeat this exercise termly. School Story Telling Grid centralised to track the stories told in each class to ensure no repetition and a coverage of different genres
•  Improved standards of handwriting quality standards of presentation and pride in presentation. Children are well prepared for secondary school in terms of writing legibly and with speed.

/Curriculum/Policy_documents/Writing_Policy_DP_November_2025.docx

/Curriculum/Policy_documents/Spelling_Policy_November_2025.docx

/Curriculum/Policy_documents/Reading_policy_2025.docx