Page 43: Understanding the Curriculum Further - a delve into KS1 English

 Page 43: Understanding the Curriculum Further - a delve into KS1 English ...

With my KS1 placement approaching, experiencing KS2 and EYFS in my previous placements, in preparation for my final placement and chapter in my teacher training in KS1 I have been further exploring the curriculum and expectations in KS1.

This week, I have decided to start with the core subject of English ...

The English National Curriculum is arranged in 5 distinct elements. The first section is spoken language, followed by reading, writing and spelling and lastly vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. In today's post, I will share a brief breakdown into these key sections and some of the vital basic areas!

The general aims of English:

English is essentail for all pupils wider learning and development throughout school. KS1 progressing from early language development and reading in the EYFS up to SAT preparation at the end of KS2 is a large and influential important chapter of pupil's education, easing their early years transition and setting them on a steady and thorough understadning for further language, reading and writing development in KS2 and eventually generally life. The National Curriculum states "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 word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment." which I personally is the overarching essential expectations. 

Spoken language:

The first section of the curriculum explores pupils spoken language which allows development to be made and progress for the whole curriculum. As the curriculum states "cognitively, socially and linguistically". This section of the curriculum refers to the way pupils use their language and their interactions with other pupils and adults. From using questions to extend knowledge, building general vocabulary, speaking fluently and coherently and having the ability to consider and respond to a range of view points and contributions, allows the pupils to develop an understadning whilst progressing from the Early Years and then developing into KS2.

Reading: word reading and comprehension: 

Year 1 - For our year one pupils, this curriculum area is all about applying the Early Years phonics knowledge in the aim to begin to reading accurately through blending sounds an example of such includes "respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes for all 40+ phonemes". When tacking comprehension, these pupils will be starting to develop their ability to explain their understanding of a text through mediums such as participation in discussion. Developing an enjoyment and motivation to read is vital, such ways this can be demonstrated includes "recognising and joining in with predictable phrases". This can be directly linked to the use of repetition and nursery rhymes, extremely predominant in Early Year's where pupils are learning this pattern recognition and understadning.

Year 2 - When regarding word reading and comprehension in year 2, pupils are further developing their knowledge and application of phonics from year 1 until "automatic decoding has become embedded and reading is fluent". In regard to comprehension, the above skills are taught in more of a wider and surrounding depth. Year 2 pupils will begin discussing more thoroughly, thoughts and understanding from key texts, begin to draw on background information and "making inference on the basis of what is being said and done." Establishing these clear set of skills in KS1 prepares the pupils for their comprehension SAT and their progression into KS2. 

Writing: transcription, composition and vocabulary, grammar and comprehension:

Year 1 - When considering writing, spelling is an essential stepping stone covering common and exception words, naming the letters of the alphabet and beginning to use prefixes and suffixes. When regarding handwriting it is not simply pen to paper. It is about developing and supporting the wider skills to get to this end point such as "sit correctly at a table, holding a pencil comfortably and correctly".  Composition is a huge stepping stone for year 1 pupils, as this is where the children start to write sentences, discuss what that have written and read their writing aloud. 

Year 2 - When progressing from the year 1 curriculum points, pupils are building further to aim to have the ability to select words with more than one contracted form as well as learning and understadning the possessive apostrophe. Writing from memory to form "simple sentences dictated by the teacher" has large learning emphasis. Pupils are starting to take more control and accuracy in their hand writing, by forming lower case letters and writing capital letters and digits to the correct size. When building upon composition, it is key to ensure pupils are developing a postive attitude towards writing, beginning to consider what to write before they start through simple planning and continuing to read aloud throughly. 

Spelling:

Year 1 - Spelling in year one begins with a revision of Reception work to an introductory of new work. Pupils start working on the vowel digraphs and trigraphs of " ai, oi, ay, oy, a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, ar, ee, ea, er, ir, ur, oo, oa, oe, ou, ow, ue, ew, ie, igh, or, ore, aw, au, air, ear and are- through a range of example words". 

Year 2 - Similarly, year 1 spelling begins with a revision of work from year one and then progresses onto new year 2 material/requirements. In addition to further developing vowel digraphs and trigraphs, pupils will focus upon "contractions, the possessive apostrophe, words ending in 'tion', homephones and near-homophones can common exception words".

Vocabulary, grammar and punctation:

This section is split into 5 sections of development/curriculum areas, that are statuary requirements for the pupils in regard to the detail of content to be introduced. 

Year 1-

Word: Pupils are predominantly focusing towards regular plural noun suffixes, suffices that can be added to verbs and how prefix ca change meaning of both adjectives and verbs.

Sentence: This regards how pupils are making sentences using words and how joining clauses and words and form sentences. 

Text: Simply, "sequencing sentences to form short narratives".

Punctuation: High focus on the separation of words using spaces, introducing capital letters and full stops, and using the capital for the personal and names.

Terminology for pupils: "letter, capital letter, word, singular, plural, sentence, punctuation, full stop, question mark and exclamation mark".

Year 2 -

Word:  Pupils are working towards the formation of nouns using suffices, the formation of adjectives using suffixes,  the use of suffixes in adjectives and using 'ly' to form adverbs from adjectives.

Sentence: Introduction of subordination and co-ordination to extend writing/talk, using expanded noun phrases for description and "how grammatical patterns in a sentence indicate it's function as a statement, question, exclamation or command".

Text: Using a range of tenses such of the present and past throughout writing correctly and using the progressive form of verbs in the present and past tense are the predominate text focuses.

Punctuation: In addition to improving to accurately use of the year one punctuation to demarcate sentences, the addition of using commas to separate items in a lost and apostrophes to mark where letters are missing.

Terminology for pupils: "noun, noun phrase, statement, question, exclamation, command, compound, suffix, adjective, adverb, verb, tense (past, present), apostrophe and comma".

As any fellow trainee or qualified teachers would know, the national curriculum is a lengthy document with lots of details, requirements and expectations. Although I have shared some key points to hopefully help break down others understadning of this curriculum area in a simple and accessible way, it is vital to access the whole document when planning to explicitly reference and ensure the full statutory points are covered. The national curriculum is a key document and this extensively of the English section is key to ensure continuity and equal understadning and learning opportunity to develop proficient English skills fully.

Having a full and solid understanding of the skills and knowledge learnt in the English section of the National Curriculum is key in providing a basic solid understanding for pupils to build upon and be supported further in all surrounding core and foundation subjects.

English is fantastic and the creativity you have as a teacher in this subject can be exponential. It is fun, engaging and inspiring. When reading and accessing this lengthy document, it is not simply reading a statutory point and teaching, as the teacher it is using your imagination to inspire and engage excellent English lessons, to promote the love of learning further! English supplements a plethora of further learning and enhancements and supplements a future of lifelong learning:

"Children must be taught how to think, not what to think" - Margaret Mead

*All information discussed is from the Department for Education, National Curriculum in England 2013*

- Miss Yeoman