Foundational Knowledge

Reading, Writing, Oracy, and Numeracy

Foundational Knowledge

Reading, Writing, Oracy, and Numeracy

At The Castle School, we believe that secure foundational knowledge provides every student to access the curriculum fully and have the opportunity to thrive.

Reading, writing, oracy, and numeracy are not separate from learning. They are the tools that allow students to understand new ideas, communicate their thinking, solve problems and succeed across all subjects.

Our ambition is that every student develops the knowledge, vocabulary, language and confidence to:

Read fluently and understand increasingly complex texts.
Write accurately and communicate their ideas effectively.
Speak and listen with confidence, precision and purpose.
Apply mathematical understanding in lessons and in everyday life.

We believe this is everyone's responsibility. Every subject contributes to the development of foundational knowledge and every teacher plays a role in helping students become successful learners.

Why Foundational Knowledge Matters

Students who can read confidently, understand academic vocabulary, communicate effectively and apply mathematical thinking are better able to access the curriculum, participate fully in lessons and achieve their potential.

Strong foundations help students to:

Access challenging curriculum content.
Become independent learners.
Build confidence and resilience.
Achieve success in exams
Develop the skills needed for future education, employment and life.

Particular attention is given to students who may face additional barriers to learning.

Reading

Tutor time reading

Students regularly read carefully selected books during tutor time. These texts have been chosen to develop vocabulary, comprehension, fluency and cultural capital while exposing students to a wide range of authors, themes and perspectives..

What it involves?

Books are read by the teacher to model fluency and intonation before students practise through choral or echo reading at regular intervals to develop oral reading miles, confidence and build belonging. This is further supported using Reading Captains who model fluent reading during tutor time. Year 7 and 9 also complete peer reading sessions with younger year groups within their house as part of the buddying programme.

Year Group Book List:

Year 7

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Kick
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Boy and Going Solo
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Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March

Year 8

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The Ghosts of Heaven
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Animal Farm
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I Am Malala
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Year 9

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Brother in the Land
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Of Mice and Men
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The Boys Who Challenged Hitler
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Year 10

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The Hate U Give
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
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Year 11

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Touching the Void
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Sparx Reader

All Key Stage 3 students complete weekly Sparx Reader homework. This ensures students read at an appropriate level and helps us track reading comprehension development over time.

What it involves?

Sparx Reader involves reading for 30 minutes or achieving 300 points as homework every week along with a reading lesson in English lessons every fortnight. With each page read – a comprehension question answered – students gain points which contributes to the house trophy. This encourages that sense of belonging amongst the house alongside their want to achieve through friendly competition. This is celebrated and tracked throughout the year in our celebration assemblies.

Library

Students can access our extensively stocked library from 8am to 5pm for reading, homework support and independent study. It is a place of exploration and a safe learning environment,

The library is also home to our student librarians, a group of passionate young readers who help to create a wonderful, accessible library but also offer weekly book recommendations to their fellow students.

The library ensures that all students have access to books of their choice. All students are given the opportunity to have a book from the library of their choice, including Year 6 when they take the big step of transitioning to our school.

Homework

With the introduction of our new homework strategy, there is a reading article every Wednesday which links to the whole school theme for that week. The purpose of the article is to ensure equity, coherence and cultural capital development. A QR code provides access to a video of a teaching modelling the reading of the article utilising the reading fluency strategies which is particularly beneficial for our students at the early stages of reading.

You can see more information about homework in the following areas:

For Year 7 homework click here

For Year 8 homework click here

For Year 9 homework click here

For Years 10 & 11 homework click here

How can you help support your child with reading at home?

Talking about books and reading with them. This can include encouraging them to discuss what they are currently reading for their Sparx and asking where they are on their class leaderboard.

Listen to them read aloud as often as you can & encourage them to read to younger members of the family or friends.
Let them see you reading. Modelling behaviour is extremely important in influencing our student’s to do the same.
Encourage them to read a broad range of texts that cover their interests. Reading isn’t just about novels: newspapers, biographies, blog posts etc, they all count. Any reading is good reading!
Reminding them that reading can be a joyful and exciting experience. It gives them to opportunity to escape and learn about places around the world. Where else can you escape to other worlds, deal with a dictator in an apocalyptic city, slay dragons and walk in the shoes of characters all in one place?
Join your local library. The Taunton library is an amazing community resource for readers and often runs amazing reading events for all ages. Remember its free!
Support them to know that the best way to improve their understanding of anything new is to read about it.

Lessons

At The Castle School, literacy is at the heart of our curriculum. It is essential to a student’s education, and we aim to ensure all students are confident readers. We focus on disciplinary literacy here at The Castle School which is explicitly taught through the identification of key vocabulary and subject specific skills. It is using word roots, syllables, morphology, etymology and dual coding that students develop their literacy skills.

Every subject has identified opportunities for and embedded reading into lessons to build these skills utilising the reading fluency strategies.

Early stages of reading

We assess reading ability at the start and end of the academic year. This allows us to identify students who require further intervention. Once identified students work in small groups working on phonics, blending of sounds, fluency and comprehension. These are short-term interventions to rapidly increase the abilities of those in need. These interventions equip students with the skills to access subjects with confidence.

Here at The Castle School, we recognise that reading comprehension is broken down into two different components: decoding (word recognition) and language comprehension. Both skills are essential to being able to access texts. By understanding a student’s area of need, interventions can be tailored to them. Furthermore, this enables staff to further develop the skills of weaker readers in lesson by using strategies for each quadrant of the Simple View of Reading.

Writing

Writing allows students to communicate their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding.

Across the curriculum, students are taught how to:

Use subject-specific vocabulary accurately.
Structure responses effectively.
Develop and explain ideas clearly.
Proofread and improve their work.
Write for different purposes and audiences.

Our writing guiding principles provide a consistent approach across the curriculum so that students develop confidence and accuracy as writers. Additional support is provided for students at the early stages of writing.

Oracy

Speaking and listening are essential skills for learning and life.

Students are regularly provided with opportunities to:

Discuss ideas and solve problems together.
Present information to others.
Participate in debates and structured classroom talk.
Use academic vocabulary confidently.
Develop communication skills for future education and employment.

By developing oracy across the curriculum, we help students become articulate, thoughtful and confident communicators.

Numeracy

Numeracy is an important part of learning in many subjects.

Our approach aims to develop students who can apply mathematical understanding confidently across different contexts.

This includes:

Identifying and supporting students at the early stages of numeracy.
Targeted intervention programmes.
Consistent mathematical methods through our Calculations Policy.
Explicit teaching of mathematical reasoning and problem solving.
Opportunities for students to extend their mathematical learning through enrichment activities and competitions.