Our School Vision for English

We aim to deliver a high-quality English curriculum that gives children the best possible opportunities to become confident, literate, successful members of society with a deep love and understanding of English language and literature. We believe the development of literacy skills is central to improving a child's life chances. Teachers have high expectations for all children to achieve and enjoy English and to be able to use the skills they have acquired in a range of contexts. We strive to ensure all children can communicate clearly in spoken and written form and become masters of language. Rich texts are at the heart of our teaching and a love for reading is promoted throughout the school. Teachers use cross-curricular inspirational ideas to engage children in work, providing memorable experiences and bringing topics to life through real-life contexts.

Intent

Reading is at the centre of learning and is one of the most important ways in which children observe and absorb strong language skills.  We are dedicated to building a culture where reading for pleasure is highly valued and our pupils become lifelong readers.  A wide range of genres are readily available to children within classroom reading areas, as well our inviting library area that is regularly updated with new and exciting books for the children to enjoy.   We nurture a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly, imaginatively and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening, and to use discussion to communicate and develop their learning in all areas of the curriculum.

Implementation

Our English curriculum aims to provide many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. We want all of our pupils to be proficient readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other curriculum subjects and feel prepared for the next steps in their education. Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary, teaching them how to write within specific genres and which structural and language features to include to be successful.  Strong example texts are used to start this process to enable pupils to use other similar writing as models for their own.  Lessons also focus on teaching specific spelling, grammar and punctuation skills to enable our pupils to apply the skills they have been taught to their extended writing and writing across the curriculum. We teach our pupils to speak clearly, to convey their ideas confidently and to ask questions.

Year groups read high-quality fiction, non-fiction, heritage literature and poetry linked to themes important to our school like the environment, diversity and friendship. We follow a five-day weekly cycle where the children build their understanding of vocabulary, and learn through teacher modelling how to make inferences, retrieve information and summarise. We also focus on fluency - the children's accuracy with reading words, their speed and their expression. In lessons, we use echo reading (the teacher models reading and the children repeat) and choral reading (teacher and class read together) to build fluency. We ensure that every child is given opportunities to be read to, read aloud and read independently.  

To promote a love of reading, we:

-Visit our recently renovated library at least once a week.

- Have specific time to DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) for children to read for pleasure.

- Pair-up with another class for shared reading twice a half term.

- Have awesome author visits and virtual author experiences throughout the year.

- Celebrate reading with an annual Book Week, which includes a dress-up day, competitions and book related activities and workshops.

- Run reading events throughout the year, linked to topical events.

- Have a selection of ‘outdoor books’ that can be read and shared during break times.

- Have a Reading Raffle prize draw for those reading more than four times per week at home.