Aims:

• to provide an engaging curriculum that captivates the children’s interest;
• to put reading at the heart of our curriculum and to provide a wide range of texts so that children can develop into fluent, confident and enthusiastic readers;
• to increase the children’s vocabulary both spoken and written;
• to systematically teach the skills that are needed to be confident and competent writers;
• to encourage children to apply their English skills across the other subjects in the curriculum.

Rationale:

At the core of our English curriculum, is the daily opportunity for pupils to engage with high quality children’s literature to serve as a context for developing oracy, to develop a love of reading and provide an inspiration for writing.

We carefully select texts to link with our themes and to support us in delivering a broad, balanced and engaging English curriculum, based upon the National Curriculum objectives.

As well as grammar and vocabulary, punctuation is also taught in context, as part of daily English lessons. Children are always shown what success looks like through the careful modelling of writing and they are encouraged to be reflective, aspirant writers, who can write for a range of purposes. We have a consistent handwriting style which is explicitly taught and modelled by our teachers.  If, however a child arrives with legible, joined handwriting and can produce this at a good speed, we will not insist that they adopt the school’s approach.

Spelling and phonics are a key part of our English provision and we carry out a phonics check when the children arrive and arrange for a bespoke catch-up teaching programme (based on Letters and Sounds) if needed.  All reading is valued, encouraged and celebrated and we have a variety of initiatives to promote reading.