Best Practice

Coherence and concepts in the primary English curriculum

Literacy and numeracy Curriculum Key stage 1 Key stage 2
English is a messy subject with a tangled web of concepts, knowledge, and processes. Robbie Burns describes how his school has tried to bring coherence to their English curriculum

English is a vast subject in the primary curriculum. More than this, it could be seen as conceptually “messy” and not as easy to structure as a subject like maths or possibly science.

We must find a way through this tangled web of concepts, knowledge and processes to find some sort of clarity. In this article, I want to outline some of the research in this area and how we have used this to coherently organise both first-order concepts and sub-concepts for our curriculum.

 

High hopes and minimal time

The national curriculum for primary English states (p13) that it aims 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.” (DfE, 2013.) It then breaks this broader aim into seven things that the curriculum should enable students to be able to “do”. I have condensed these down to four:

  • Read fluently, with good understanding, acquiring a rich vocabulary.
  • Develop a habit of reading and appreciate our varied literary heritage.
  • Understand grammatical and linguistic conventions of language.
  • Write and speak for a range of purposes, contexts, and audiences.

It would be impossible to disagree with the need for students to be able to do these things by the end of primary or with the desire to promote high standards of literacy, a strong command of the written word, and a love of literature. The challenge is the sheer amount of things that students need to be able to “do”. The imperative to provide a broad and balanced curriculum for our students by teaching the full quota of subjects conflicts with the realities of the amount of curriculum time we have each day.

The first and most important step that any leader of curriculum can take is to ensure that there is coherent mapping of content. When this is done, allocated time on the timetable can be given over to structure the delivery and scope of what ought to be taught.

 

A summary of Ofsted research

Last year, Ofsted released its subject research review of English (2022) and recommended the following to support schools in their curriculum and pedagogical development.

Knowledge and fluency first: The critical first step is strong, progressively sequenced knowledge of the basic elements of reading and writing so that automaticity is achieved: “For both reading and writing, repeated practice is key to gaining proficiency.”

Teach words explicitly and progressively: Without students increasing their word-haul over time and this being mapped and taught by teachers, the vocabulary knowledge of students is likely to be left to chance, with the gap between high and low attaining students increasing over time.

Increase breadth and depth of reading over time: Careful and systematic choices of text, mapped from nursery to year 6 is a critical element of ensuring that students read lots and lots of great literature over time. Texts should also be mapped so they become progressively more challenging over time.

Direct instruction as an approach is imperative for novice English learners: Although some may feel “direct instruction” implies dry and dusty, boring teaching, in the context of English it simply means that we should explicitly show students “what to do and how to do it” over time.

 

The rope analogy

Our vision for primary English can be expressed as the following: “We want every student to be a reader, a writer and to love books for their own sake.” This short statement encapsulates everything we want to achieve. Our results show that almost all do – something we are very proud of. But there is still work to do.

More than a year ago, the first step was to organise the curriculum into its constituent parts. The best way to explain the approach we have taken to structuring learning in this subject is through two, first-order conceptual “ropes” – one for reading for meaning, the other for writing for purpose (see figure 1). Although they are separate, they have the common purpose outlined above.

 

Figure 1: Two conceptual ropes with vital sub-concepts help to bring coherence to the English curriculum (image supplied)

 

Of course, some will ask where speaking and listening is. My response is that they are woven into both reading and writing. We don’t speak independently of what we read and we don’t write independently of what we say. This is why there is not a separate speaking and listening concept or “rope” in our curriculum. We expect it to be an essential part of all that we do in the subject as a whole.

The conceptual rope of “reading for meaning” can be explained in the simple statement that when we read, we read to understand and comprehend the meaning of the black squiggles on the page. The letters are not ends in themselves. They are the writer’s attempt to convey meaning coherently across sentences, paragraphs and chapters.

As students leave primary education, if they have not grasped that every letter, sound and word, rooted in sentences, paragraphs and chapters, is not trying to express something that cannot be expressed simply by observation, or through talking, then they have missed the reason for reading.

The conceptual rope of “writing for purpose” runs parallel to reading for meaning and can be explained as the understanding that when we write, there is always a reason. The three most common are to entertain, inform and persuade.

Like reading for meaning, the words and phrases, rooted in sentences and paragraphs that our students write are not purposeless, they are trying to say something about the world as it is, or as it ought to be, or trying to persuade or describe (non-fiction), or perhaps these words are trying to furnish the imaginations of others (fiction).

The idea of these two concepts being “ropes” is important. Ropes are made up of strands. These strands are woven together tightly to form the overall structure. If one of the strands is frayed, poorly formed, or even missing, the whole rope will struggle to achieve its purpose.

Like strands, there are many “sub-concepts” that are woven tightly together as part of the broader concept of reading for meaning or writing for purpose. When mapping our curriculum, we identified these carefully, making sure that as we wove them together, they were integrated correctly throughout units of work. We are still doing this after a year of development, but because we have made clear what the overall, first-order concepts are in the first place, we are able to constantly check and re-assess any “kinks”, “knots”, or missing parts that need to be re-addressed, planned and sequenced.

Each first-order concept has a set of sub-concepts, which to use our rope analogy could be considered to be the strands of each rope that are not taught discretely, but rather are woven together across units of work and over time. Let’s briefly outline each.

 

Writing for purpose

Composition and transcription: These concepts, considered together, refer to the substantive knowledge of writing, including: spelling, punctuation, grammar and transcription (handwriting). It constitutes the core knowledge and terms we need to use to explain the English language.

Purpose and text type: These concepts refer to all of the ideas that students need to know related to writing purposes and the forms of the text that they take. For example, when we write to inform, students need to know how to structure their chronological or non-chronological report. When writing to persuade, they need to be able to understand the conventions of persuasion to achieve the writing purpose. This represents the disciplinary knowledge of the subject of English – what it means to be “a writer”.

Writer’s craft: This concept refers to the study of how writers use language in more nuanced ways beyond simply the conventions of the text type of the purpose and refers to the way in which writers use language to create imagery, the way they persuade, the way they inform, and the way they discuss. This represents a mixture of substantive and disciplinary knowledge in preparation for students being able to study literature more formally in secondary school. Examples of ‘writer’s craft’ are figurative language such as metaphor, simile, personification, repetition, use of setting and character.

 

Reading for meaning

Fluent decoding: Like composition and transcription in writing, the sub-concept here could be broken down into two parts but we have decided to put them together for important reasons.

First, if we are to accurately say that a student can “decode”, we are also saying that they can do so “fluently”. To see them as separate is like cutting a football in half – it makes no sense and is of little use to anyone.

Next, this is a sub-concept that does not end once students have completed their early reading programme. Students continue to learn to decode for evermore and we must teach with this in mind. And finally, because these two ideas are so intimately intertwined, to plan for them in a way that separates them would be poor reading pedagogy.

By welding them together, we are able to constantly consider how a student’s substantive knowledge (of the alphabetic code) is being accurately used as they develop their reading (displaying their disciplinary knowledge).

Vocabulary: Word learning is a standalone sub-concept within reading for meaning but could dovetail both reading and writing first-order concept “ropes”. Regardless, by including it as a sub-concept of reading we are identifying clearly that words can be taught explicitly and separately from teaching students to decode fluently.

Whereas reading instruction focused on decoding fluently is aimed at students being able to crack the alphabetic code, vocabulary learning is focused on the meaning of words and phrases as a cumulative learning journey over time. A student’s large word-hoard is a key building block for substantive knowledge not only in the English curriculum but in all subjects.

Comprehension: This sub-concept attempts to convey the need for students to grasp the idea that the alphabetic code, read fluently and drawing on the word knowledge that they have, can be understood through a range of lenses, interpretations and perspectives. Beyond the reading domains outlined by the national tests, we want our curriculum to go deeper and consider setting, character and literary concepts to prepare students for their secondary learning of this subject.

 

Why map the curriculum from concepts?

When developing our curriculum, we identified two “first-order” concepts and six flexible “sub-concepts” that enable us to accurately map the scope and sequence of the rest of our curriculum. But why is this worthwhile and what are the benefits for leaders and teachers?

First, it makes sure that there is no time wasted and students develop deep knowledge in long-term memory. If the unit of work or book being read does not align with the wider purposes of the curriculum, it does not get taught.

Second, because of the depth of mapping, we can teach effectively in small steps. This is one of the fundamental elements of high-quality explicit teaching. It is possible to see clearly which lesson corresponds to which concept and how students will be able to develop their English learning over time.

Third, because of the two distinct ropes, we can discretely teach reading and writing, knowing that they will run in parallel lines with one another, complementing the development of each and in turn complementing the wider curriculum.

And finally, we make sure that our English curriculum not only complements the development of reading and writing with clarity, it also supports the learning of other subjects, such as history, geography and science by building on the knowledge gained in these subjects to teach students to “inform” and “persuade” about key issues that are applicable to the wider curriculum.

 

Headteacher Update Summer Term Edition 2023

  • This article first appeared in Headteacher Update's Summer Term Edition 2023. This edition was sent free of charge to every primary school in the country. A digital edition is also available via www.headteacher-update.com/digital-editions/

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