English at Hamilton
Intent
At Hamilton, our English curriculum is designed to develop communication, language, and literacy skills in a way that is accessible and meaningful for all learners. We recognize that our pupils require a highly structured and multi-sensory approach to literacy, ensuring that they are exposed to language, symbols, and print in a way that supports their individual learning needs. We also use Widgit Symbols to support the work children do, ensuring consistency and clarity across learning tasks.
Our English curriculum encompasses all aspects of literacy, including early literacy development for pupils who are not yet ready to engage with formal reading and writing instruction. The Early Literacy Programme forms a key part of our curriculum, providing essential pre-reading and early literacy skills through structured activities within workboxes to ensure a tailored approach to foundational literacy development. It is designed to develop fundamental pre-reading and early reading skills through structured activities such as categorisation, visual discrimination, and sentence-building.
All pupils engage with the English curriculum at a level appropriate to their needs, which includes reading, writing, and communication skills, planned across different year groups with thematic units.
Our aims are to:
• Build foundational literacy skills through the Early Literacy Programme, ensuring pupils develop key pre-reading, communication, and phonics skills.
• Develop early reading and writing skills through structured phonics instruction and engagement with books, symbols, and print.
• Support comprehension, vocabulary development, and writing skills through the structured English curriculum, including thematic units covering fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
• Foster a love of stories, books, and communication, ensuring that pupils engage meaningfully with texts and develop confidence in their literacy skills.
• Provide a clear progression of learning that allows all pupils to develop at their own pace and access appropriate learning pathways.
Implementation
Our English curriculum is delivered through a range of approaches that meet the needs of our learners, including:
• Early Literacy Programme:
A key part of the English curriculum, aimed at pupils who are not yet ready to engage with formal reading and writing instruction. The programme provides essential pre-reading and early literacy skills, supporting the development of communication, reading, and writing. These literacy skills are woven into the broader English curriculum, ensuring that pupils receive regular, structured opportunities to develop their communication and reading skills in a meaningful way. The Early Literacy Programme is embedded within workbox teaching sessions, ensuring pupils have regular opportunities to develop and apply their skills in a structured and supportive environment. This includes:
• Categorisation: Developing vocabulary and understanding through sorting objects, pictures, and symbols.
• Visual Discrimination: Strengthening recognition of symbols, letters, and patterns essential for reading.
• Sentence Building Programme (SBP): Supporting structured sentence construction through visual and written methods.
Phonics and Reading Instruction:
• Pre-phonics Exposure: Introducing Sound Boxes, an Attention Autism-style phonics session designed to expose pupils to simple sounds while building essential learning skills such as sustained attention and turn-taking.
• Phonics Instruction: For pupils ready to progress beyond the Early Literacy Programme, we are in the process of implementing Read Write Inc, delivered one to one or in small groups of up to four students. This structured approach ensures pupils develop phonemic awareness and early reading fluency.
• Reading: Pupils explore books, symbols, and text in a structured way, learning to handle books, recognize words and symbols, predict story events, and understand that print carries meaning. Pupils on the Discoverer and Adventurer Pathways access the Dandelion reading books accompanied by a symbol supported matching workbook that aims to support their comprehension of the book.
Writing and Communication:
• Pupils develop early writing skills through mark-making, sentence construction, and structured writing tasks linked to thematic units.
• The curriculum is designed around engaging themes with fiction, non-fiction, and poetry components, promoting vocabulary development, comprehension, and writing skills.
• A small number of pupils work within the National Curriculum at a level appropriate to their needs.
Impact
The impact of our English curriculum is measured through:
• Increased engagement in books, stories, and print.
• Improved ability to recognize and use symbols, letters, and simple words.
• Development of foundational phonics knowledge and pre-reading skills through Sound Boxes.
• Progress in phonics instruction using Read Write Inc, leading to improved decoding and early reading skills.
• Development of communication skills, including turn-taking, listening, and expressive language.
• Increased confidence in handling books, recognizing words, and engaging with stories.
• Structured progression through thematic English curriculum units, developing comprehension, writing, and vocabulary skills.
By providing a structured and progressive approach to literacy, we ensure that all pupils have access to the foundational skills they need to develop as readers, writers, and communicators, with clear pathways for further learning.
