At Duncraig Primary School, our English program is grounded in the Western Australian Curriculum and is designed to ensure all students develop strong foundations in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Our approach is explicit, systematic and evidence-based, supporting all students to become confident, capable and engaged communicators.
Explicit Instruction and the WA Curriculum
English is taught through explicit instruction, where skills and concepts are clearly taught, modelled and practised. Teaching and learning align with the WA Curriculum strands of Language, Literature and Literacy, ensuring a consistent and high-quality English program across the school.
Whole-School Approaches to Language and Writing
Across all year levels, Duncraig Primary School implements consistent whole-school practices to support language and writing development.
These include:
- Literature-Based Units, supporting vocabulary development, oral language, sentence structure and grammar across curriculum areas
- Talk for Writing, which develops students’ ability to orally rehearse language, understand text structures and apply these skills to their own writing
- UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) resources, providing explicit and systematic phonics instruction
These approaches ensure students develop strong oral language skills and a deep understanding of how texts work.
Early Years: Kindergarten to Year 2
In the early years, our focus is on building strong foundations in oral language, phonological awareness, decoding and early writing skills.
Key features of our Kindergarten to Year 2 English program include:
- Letters and Sounds instruction to develop strong phonemic awareness and early decoding skills
- Peggy Lego strategies to support sentence structure, grammar and early writing development
- Hegarty to support foundational language, comprehension and early reasoning skills through structured, explicit lessons
Students also engage with high?quality digital programs to further support their learning:
- Reading Eggs, supporting phonics, reading fluency and early comprehension in an engaging, age?appropriate way.
Upper Primary: Years 3 to 6
In Years 3 to 6, students build on their foundational skills to strengthen spelling, vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing across a range of text types.
Key components of the Year 3–6 English program include:
- Sound Waves, providing a systematic and explicit approach to spelling, phonics and word knowledge
- Explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies, including predicting, inferring, summarising and analysing texts
- Structured writing instruction aligned to WA Curriculum genres and text types, supporting students to write for a range of purposes and audiences
Students also access digital programs to personalise and extend their learning:
- Literacy Pro, which assesses reading ability, recommends appropriately levelled texts and tracks growth over time.
Assessment and Monitoring Student Progress
Assessment at Duncraig Primary School is purposeful and ongoing, and is used to inform teaching, monitor student progress and provide targeted support and extension.
Our English assessment practices include:
- On-Entry Assessments, providing early information about students’ literacy knowledge and skills
- DIBELS assessments, used to monitor reading development, including phonemic awareness, decoding and fluency
- Decodable text assessments, to track students’ progress in applying phonics skills to reading
- PAT (Progressive Achievement Tests) from ACER, assessing reading achievement and growth over time
- Elastik’s WriteMark, supporting consistent assessment and moderation of student writing against curriculum standards
- Collaborative moderation, enabling teachers to develop shared understandings of achievement standards and ensure consistency in teacher judgement
- NAPLAN assessments for Year 3 and Year 5, providing additional information about student achievement in reading, writing, spelling and language conventions
Assessment data is used collaboratively by teachers to plan instruction, differentiate learning and support every student to reach their potential.
Supporting Every Learner
At Duncraig Primary School, assessment is used purposefully to inform teaching and provide targeted support and extension. Our English program is inclusive and responsive, ensuring all students are supported to achieve their potential as readers, writers and communicators.
