Curriculum – English
At Cassiobury Infant and Nursery School, we plan our English Curriculum based on the standards set out in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery & Reception) and The National Curriculum English Programmes of Study: Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2). We believe that every child is a writer, and are passionate about developing every child’s knowledge, motivation and confidence in their writing. We have chosen HFL Education’s ESSENTIALWRITING as the basis of our writing curriculum for Reception – Year 2. This is an ambitious and progressive writing scheme which provides our children with opportunities and tools to write for a range of specific purposes and authentic audiences. As a result, our children feel inspired and ready to write high-quality outcomes within the classroom but also have the knowledge, strategies and confidence to choose to write in their own lives
Alongside ESSENTIALWRITING, we have adopted Read Write Inc. Phonics programme (RWI) as the basis of our spelling curriculum. ESSENTIALWRITING supports our children to apply this learning in context and build their spelling confidence. Writing models reflect age-appropriate spelling objectives and children are taught how to monitor the accuracy of their writing. Handwriting is also taught. We have adopted HfL Handwriting Progression Toolkit, a sequential and cumulative handwriting progression from Reception to Year 2, with opportunities for frequent review embedded throughout ensuring consistency of practice and providing teachers with clear guidance to inform planning, assessment and targeted intervention. We ensure that every child gains sufficient fluency for writing, with knowledge of accurate letter formation and how to join letters so that they can meet the National Curriculum expectations for each key stage.
In ESSENTIALWRITING lessons, the stages of the writing process are given dedicated teaching time to enable all children to behave as writers. They learn about these vital stages of writing and, within key stage one, they are given time to collect their ideas, plan and compose their writing orally before writing. They are given regular opportunities to share their writing by reading and rereading it aloud. Children regularly discuss what they have written with their teacher and their peers to ensure their meaning is clear. They are taught to proof-read to make corrections in spelling, grammar and punctuation so that their readers can follow their writing with clarity. Vitally, within all writing units, the children are given time to publish their writing to share it and celebrate their success with their intended audience.
Our English curriculum takes account of both the Reading and Writing Frameworks and is carefully planned to develop confident, independent readers, writers and speakers. The Reading Framework supports pupils to build comprehension, vocabulary and fluency, while the Writing Framework secures accurate transcription, composition and punctuation. Our oracy provision strengthens speaking and listening skills, helping pupils to articulate ideas clearly, listen thoughtfully and engage in purposeful discussion. Together, these frameworks ensure progression, consistency and high standards across all year groups.
Teaching English in the EYFS (Nursery & Reception)
The EYFS Framework sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.
There are seven areas of learning and development that must shape educational programmes in early years settings (3 Prime and 4 Specific areas). All areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected; the areas that link to the acquisition of English skills are as follows:
- Communication and Language (Listening, Attention and Understanding; Speaking)
- Physical Development (Fine Motor Skills)
- Literacy (Comprehension; Word Reading; Writing)
Within the Early Years, children are taught that their writing is important and can be shared with people to communicate their thoughts, interests and ideas. This develops the children’s earliest understanding of writing for an authentic purpose and audience, as they are invited to make their own books throughout the year within a writing community and share with their peers and loved ones. All bookmaking projects are based on the children’s own experiences and ideas, with all adults involved in creating their own books too!
All children are given the opportunity to talk, draw, write and share within the Early Years setting, as part of the writing process. Drawing and writing will take the form of emergent writing and mark-making in the children’s earlier stages of development whilst the children learn how to hear different sounds in words and form letters accurately during their reception year. All children are invited to share their ideas, their drawing and/or their writing every day, and to feel increasing self-esteem, motivation and belonging when their peers and adults want to hear what they want to say and what they want to write.
Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage September 2025
Development Matters: Non-statutory Curriculum Guidance for the EYFS 2021
Teaching English in KS1 (Years 1 & 2)
The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- Are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate
Year ONE
In Year 1, the children are always encouraged to write for an authentic audience and are introduced to the concept of writing to entertain and to inform their readers. Alongside their growing knowledge of how sounds are represented in writing (grapheme-phoneme correspondence, or GPCs), the children learn how to use this knowledge to write a wider range of vocabulary to support their own compositions. Simple sentence structure is emphasised, along with use of spaces between words, capital letters and full stops, to help the reader know where one idea ends and another begins. The children will also start to extend the range of punctuation applied by using question marks and exclamation marks in their writing. They will become familiar with a range of genres, such as narratives, recipes, letters and explanations, and enjoy playing with language whilst writing their own poetry.
Year TWO
In Year 2, the children build upon their understanding of writing to inform and to entertain their audience. Use of sentence structure is consolidated further, and the children are taught how to join their ideas to create greater variety and interest for the reader. Punctuation to demarcate sentences is regularly taught and reviewed, and the children are introduced to using a comma to separate items in a list and apostrophes to show where letters are missing (contraction) or singular possession. A range of wider vocabulary is taught and encouraged within the children’s writing, to support more detailed description, along with the use of adjectives and adverbs to add detail to nouns and verbs. Children in Year 2 are taught about a wider range of genres to suit their writing purpose, such as a non-chronological report and instructions when writing to inform. To support their understanding of how to entertain their reader, they are also taught about some figurative language techniques, such as the use of simile and alliteration.
National Curriculum English Programmes of Study: Key Stages 1 and 2
READING
At Cassiobury Infant and Nursery School we believe that reading holds the key to enabling all children to access the full curriculum on offer. It is so important that children learn to read fluently as quickly as possible as fluent readers will learn more, because they can read and gain knowledge for themselves. Staff are passionate about the teaching of phonics and reading and are determined that every pupil will learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities.
End of Year Expectations in: Reading
- Nursery
- Reception
- Year 1
- Year 2
END OF YEAR EXPECTATIONS
EYFS – Development Matters: Reading
Children develop at their own rates, and in their own ways. The development statements and their order should not be taken as necessary steps for individual children. The age/stage bands overlap because these are not fixed age boundaries but suggest a typical range of development.
In the EYFS, reading is covered in the ‘Specific Area’ of Literacy. By the end of their time in EYFS, Reception children who are working at age related expectations in Reading will achieve The Early Learning Goal (ELG).
ELG Comprehension:
Children at the expected level of development will:
- Demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them by retelling stories and narratives using their own words and recently introduced vocabulary
- Anticipate – where appropriate – key events in stories
- Use and understand recently introduced vocabulary during discussions about stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems and during role-play
ELG Word Reading:
Children at the expected level of development will:
- Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs
- Read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending
- Read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words
YEAR 1 – programme of study
The programme of study for reading at key Stage 1 consists of two dimensions:
- word reading
- comprehension (both listening and reading)
Reading – Word Reading
Pupils should be taught to:
- apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words
- respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes (letters or groups of letters) for all 40+ phonemes, including, where applicable, alternative sounds for graphemes
- read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words containing GPCs that have been taught
- read common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word
- read words containing taught GPCs and –s, –es, –ing, –ed, –er and –est endings
- read other words of more than one syllable that contain taught GPCs
- read words with contractions [for example, I’m, I’ll, we’ll], and understand that the apostrophe represents the omitted letter(s)
- read books aloud, accurately, that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words
- reread these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading
Reading – comprehension
Pupils should be taught to:
- develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding by:
- listening to and discussing a wide range of poems, stories and non-fiction at a level beyond that at which they can read independently
- being encouraged to link what they read or hear to their own experiences
- becoming very familiar with key stories, fairy stories and traditional tales, retelling them and considering their particular characteristics
- recognising and joining in with predictable phrases
- learning to appreciate rhymes and poems, and to recite some by heart
- discussing word meanings, linking new meanings to those already known
- understand both the books they can already read accurately and fluently and those they listen to by:
- drawing on what they already know or on background information and vocabulary provided by the teacher
- checking that the text makes sense to them as they read, and correcting inaccurate reading
- discussing the significance of the title and events
- making inferences on the basis of what is being said and done
- predicting what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far
- participate in discussion about what is read to them, taking turns and listening to what others say
- explain clearly their understanding of what is read to them
YEAR 2 – programme of study
The programme of study for reading at key Stage 1 consists of two dimensions:
- word reading
- comprehension (both listening and reading)
Reading – word reading
Pupils should be taught to:
- continue to apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words until automatic decoding has become embedded and reading is fluent
- read accurately by blending the sounds in words that contain the graphemes taught so far, especially recognising alternative sounds for graphemes
- read accurately words of two or more syllables that contain the same graphemes as above
- read words containing common suffixes
- read further common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word
- read most words quickly and accurately, without overt sounding and blending, when they have been frequently encountered
- read aloud books closely matched to their improving phonic knowledge, sounding out unfamiliar words accurately, automatically and without undue hesitation
- reread these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading
Reading – Comprehension
Pupils should be taught to:
- develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding by:
- listening to, discussing and expressing views about a wide range of contemporary and classic poetry, stories and non-fiction at a level beyond that at which they can read independently
- discussing the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related
- becoming increasingly familiar with and retelling a wider range of stories, fairy stories and traditional tales
- being introduced to non-fiction books that are structured in different ways
- recognising simple recurring literary language in stories and poetry
- discussing and clarifying the meanings of words, linking new meanings to known vocabulary
- discussing their favourite words and phrases
- continuing to build up a repertoire of poems learnt by heart, appreciating these and reciting some, with appropriate intonation to make the meaning clear
- understand both the books that they can already read accurately and fluently and those that they listen to by:
- drawing on what they already know or on background information and vocabulary provided by the teacher
- checking that the text makes sense to them as they read, and correcting inaccurate reading
- making inferences on the basis of what is being said and done
- answering and asking questions
- predicting what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far
- participate in discussion about books, poems and other works that are read to them and those that they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say
- explain and discuss their understanding of books, poems and other material, both those that they listen to and those that they read for themselves
Teacher Assessment Frameworks at the end of key stage 1
WRITING
The Curriculum – writing in EYFS
In the EYFS, children are provided with opportunities to write throughout the different areas of the curriculum and in their Child Initiated Learning, which we call BLT (Busy Learning Time).
By the end of Reception, children working at the expected level of development will:
Early Learning Goal (ELG) – Literacy: Writing
- Write recogniseable letters, most of which are correctly formed
- Spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters
- Write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others
Early Learning Goal (ELG) – Physical Development: Fine Motor Skills
- Hold a pencil effectively in preparation for fluent writing – using the tripod grip in almost all cases
- Use a range of small tools, including scissors, paint brushes and cutlery
- Begin to show accuracy and care when drawing
The Curriculum – writing in KS1
The programmes of study for writing at key stages 1 and 2 are constructed similarly to those for reading:
- transcription (spelling and handwriting)
- composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing)
It is essential that teaching develops pupils’ competence in these two dimensions. In addition, pupils should be taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. These aspects of writing have been incorporated into the programmes of study for composition. Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words. Effective composition involves forming, articulating and communicating ideas, and then organising them coherently for a reader. This requires clarity, awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Writing also depends on fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy handwriting.
PHONICS
At Cassiobury Infant School we follow the Read Write Inc. (RWI) phonics programme. RWI provides a daily structured and systematic approach to teaching phonics. It is used by more than a quarter of the UK’s primary schools and is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers.
The children are grouped homogenously according to their phonic ability thus allowing them to work at their own pace, developing their phonic skills and consolidate their knowledge and understanding.
Useful Links
Read Write Inc. (RWI) website
Phonics Screening Check: Sample materials and training video
Speed Sounds on the Oxford Owl website
Learn to Read with Phonics on the Oxford Owl website