Here is our English overview. Our Reading Rationale can be found below. 

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Year 7 All About Me	Narrative: The Story of Tracy Beaker Jacqueline Wilson Narrative focus: Diary Entry Poetry & Rhyme: The Morning Rush - John Foster Performance poetry	Narrative: Hansel & Gretel Brothers Grimm Narrative focus: Settings Instructional Writing: Making a gingerbread house and writing instructions	Narrative: Stig of the Dump Clive King Narrative focus: Character description Poetry & Rhyme: Growing Up Rachel Field Descriptive poem
Year 8 My Amazing Human Body	Narrative: The Worst Witch Jill Murphy Narrative focus: Newspapers Poetry & Rhyme: All of me Jessica MacDonald Chronological report on my changing body	Narrative: The Boy at the Back of the Class Onjali Rauf Narrative focus: adventure story Narrative supplementary The Raft Jim LaMarche Write a postcard	Narrative: Firework Maker’s Daughter Philip Pullman Narrative focus: Character description Poetry & rhyme: "Fireworks” David McCord Descriptive poems
Year 9 My Voice, My Choice	Narrative: My Beautiful Voice Joseph Coelho Narrative focus - character description Poetry & Rhyme: I have a dream Abba Performance poem	Narrative: Little People - Big Dreams Albert Einstein Narrative focus - Chronological report on own achievements Autobiography When I’m an adult -Inspirational people	Narrative: The Tunnel Anthony Browne Narrative focus: alternative endings Narrative supplementary My Friend Earth
Year 10 Risky Business	Narrative: George’s Marvellous Medicine Roald Dahl Narrative focus: plot and sequence Instructional writing: Recipe for a medicine	Narrative: The Magic Faraway Tree Enid Blyton Narrative focus: Recount Poetry & Rhyme: Don’t Michael Rosen	Narrative: The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time Mark Haddon Narrative focus: report writing Newspaper report: Writing facts
Year 11 Bradford, Britain and Beyond	Narrative: The Primrose Railway Children: Jacqueline Wilson Narrative focus: settings Instructional writing: Local leaflets and Posters	Narrative: The Classic Adventures of Paddington Bear Michael Bond Narrative focus: writing a letter Poetry & Rhyme: My Gran Visits England Gracie Nichols	Narrative: Looking At The Stars Jo Cotterill Narrative focus: Journal & diary Poetry & Rhyme: The Land of Blue Laura Mucha
Year 12 My ambitions and aspirations	Narrative: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl Narrative focus: Recount Instructional writing: competition or enterprise Poetry & Rhyme: Write and perform poem based on a sweet shop or supermarket aisle	Narrative: Goodnight Mr Tom Michelle Magorian Narrative focus: Diary / Journal Poetry & Rhyme: Beautiful Ambition Karl Nova	Narrative: Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone JK Rowling Narrative focus: adventure story Autobiography Boss it girl JK Rowling
Year 13 I am an entrepreneur	Narrative: Kensuke’s Kingdom Michael Morpurgo Narrative focus: Letter writing Personal recounts: Timeline of events	Narrative:  Holes Louis Sachar Narrative focus: Newspaper report	Narrative: Refugee Boy Benjamin Zephaniah Poetry & Rhyme: Success Ralph Waldo Emerson
Year 14 My life beyond Southfield	Narrative: Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll Narrative focus: Adventure story Poetry & rhyme Jabberwocky Lewis Carroll	Narrative: Skellig David Almond Autobiography	Narrative: Oliver Twist Charles Dickens Narrative focus: Diary & Journal Poetry & Rhyme: The Dream Keeper Langston Hughes

 

Reading Rationale

Aims

For all students to develop and use pre-reading and reading skills to extract meaning from visual or tactile representation in order to enhance their communication and literacy skills.

For all students to develop functional reading skills that enable them to communicate choices, interact with others and access both the school and the wider community.

For all students to have access to a wide range of literature to enrich and broaden their experience.

For all students to enjoy reading for leisure - either being read to, sharing a book with an adult or choosing and reading a book independently.

Pre-reading skills

Developing students 'pre-reading' skills is an essential part of the English curriculum, and extends to the rest of the Southfield curriculum. Pre-reading skills focus on teaching children to tune into sounds, remembering them and gradually learning to name them.  This is done in lots of different ways, e.g. rhymes, sound-based games, e.g. sound lotto or exploring the sounds different instruments make. At Southfield pre-reading skills include activities that promote the development of communication, play and thinking skills.

Opportunities to develop communication skills at all levels from pre-intentional communication, through learning to anticipate, share joint attention, make choices and to join in with imaginative activities within subjects such as performing arts.

Listening attention skills that start with developing awareness of environmental sounds such as birds and a car passing and including the sound of familiar voices.

Developing visual attention skills such as looking at light sources, making choices from photos and pictures, progressing to identifying elements within a picture, commenting and labelling pictures, linking real things with a symbol and symbol matching.

An appreciation of the sounds and the patterns of language through songs and rhymes.  An enjoyment of books and stories through positive and exciting encounters with printed media, including access to books from a variety of genres and including nonfiction texts. 

An understanding of single words through the consistent and systematic use of objects of reference, photographs and symbols. For all students this will begin with learning the names of objects, people, places and actions that a student needs to acquire in order to make sense of the world and influence events. 

The development of an increasing vocabulary by using an individual student’s preferred symbolic representation and with the aim of supporting all areas of the curriculum.

Phonics

Phonics is taught using the Read, Write Inc programme. This programme teaches phonics in a systematic, synthetic way. RWInc promotes speaking and listening skills, phonological awareness and oral blending skills.

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/programmes/phonics/

A typical phonics session follows a set structure:

• Revisit and Review (Speed Sounds) -previously taught phonemes
• Teach (a new phoneme / special friends - 2 letters but 1 sound)
• Practise and Apply

Students typically revisit the same phonemes and graphemes many times so they become embedded.  At Southfield, we understand that to progress in reading, students need to read with fluency and accuracy, otherwise their working memory will be overloaded and will impact on their ability to derive meaning from the text.  Our students need to become automatic in their recognition of phonemes so that they can decode words at speed and accurately. As part of the RWInc programme, the children are introduced to words which do not follow phonetic patterns and so must be learnt individually.

Why did we pick RWInc?

Lessons are well-paced, engaging and motivating.

Assessment matches the steps, so we can recognise and celebrate progress students make.

Resources can be adapted for pupils with a variety of SEND needs, e.g. non-verbal, alternative communication systems, and HI/ VI.

The company provides high quality ongoing training to support our teachers in developing their own knowledge and skills.

Stories and literature

We also know that it is important for all students to develop a love of stories, books and reading. Stories are a key component of English lessons, and are pre-selected. The planning of these books ensures that a range of authors and concepts are used over the year and key stages, to avoid repetition. This also ensures that students experience a wide range of high-quality texts to build their cultural capital.  These stories act as a hook to English language outcomes and the wider curriculum.

Sensory stories are used to support learning in some Southfield classes, and help the narrative come to life using a mixture of text and complimentary sensory experiences. Through the use of sensory stories that are repeated over time, it is possible for students within our PMLD cohort to begin to anticipate the order of events in the story, respond consistently to the stimuli and to show enjoyment during the story sessions. It is intended that one story is the focus for a half term which is delivered consistently by the staff team. It is expected that there are sufficient resources provided so that the children can have the opportunity to explore and interact with the sensory item without waiting for extended periods of time for their turn. It is appreciated that some resources will need to be shared to allow the children to develop anticipation and turn taking skills.

Some classrooms have transformed a physical space in the classroom to create a conducive, lively and inviting space for reading. Reading corners contain a range of reading material and formats appropriate to the interests of the students. 

To make our reading curriculum inclusive to all students, we are guided by the following definition of reading:

“reading may be interpreted as any activity that leads to the derivation of meanings from visual or tactile representation”

This definition allows us to include the use of objects of reference, photographs and symbols as well as formal systems such as PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), as reading. These may be accessed visually, orally or through touch and through these resources children learn that one thing can represent something else.

Research

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/reading-comprehension-strategies

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65830c10ed3c34000d3bfcad/The_reading_framework.pdf