English Subject Leader: Mrs Upex (Covered by Mrs Stephenson KS1 and Mr Paterson KS2 in her absence)   

Intent

• For every child to see themselves as writers and readers
• For children to be inspired by and to love reading and writing a variety of genres
• To provide a consistently planned and sequenced curriculum which has been designed and developed with the needs of the children at its centre.

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in English, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. By placing carefully selected books at the core of our English curriculum, we immerse children in high quality texts which celebrate diversity, recognise a range of cultures and social issues and promote a love of literature.

Teachers plan and adapt well sequenced, exciting lessons inspired by The Literacy Tree Curriculum, which is mapped against the English Programme of Study for KS1 and KS2 for Writing and Reading Comprehension. Early Years staff meet the requirements of the statutory 2021 Early Years Framework by planning sequences of lessons adapted from Focus Curriculum to build on the interests of our children. In many cases, objectives are covered more than once and children have opportunities to apply these several times over the course of a year, as well as to consolidate prior knowledge from previous years. This approach supports children to think deeply and develop skills with depth.

Our planning sequences often begin with a hook or opener to engage and inspire children. We aim for our regular writing opportunities to be meaningful, where children have a clear audience and a real purpose to write. We aim to motivate our children to write through a range of genres with a variety of short and long writing tasks. Our teaching makes explicit links to reading and provides daily opportunities to see writing modelled. Children also regularly take part in gathering ideas and engage in shared or guided writing. Our carefully planned teaching sequences mean spelling and grammar objectives are taught and applied in context.

Impact:

The impact of our rigorous English curriculum, ensures that children are exposed to the appropriate age related knowledge. Along with this, they gain the skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.

All children will have:

• a wider variety of reading, writing and speaking and listening skills
• a richer vocabulary which will enable children to apply in their writing, along with their everyday lives
• A love of books and motivation to read
• high aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life

English plays an important part in the social and personal development of children.  We teach our pupils to read, write, speak and listen so as to promote not only enjoyment but also a sense of achievement.  We give our children opportunities to develop all their language skills through narratives, poetry and non-fiction amongst other genres.

We provide a large and varied selection of books in the class and school library. We actively encourage parents to support their child’s reading at home, making reading pleasurable and free from pressure.