In English we want our children to have a love for the spoken and written forms of communicating and to enjoy the books that they read so that they return to them time and time again. We recognise that to engage children fully in English we want the English curriculum to be rich in opportunity, exciting to engage in and motivates them to want to learn and be successful. We aim to make English the foundation of "Learning for Life".
To this aim we teach English through a broad and balanced curriculum, centred on children's preferred learning styles and personal interests.
Phonics and Reading
We access and use a range of phonic scheme materials, including Letters and Sounds, Phonics International and Jolly Phonics. We also encourage contributions from staff regarding excellent knowledge and understanding of phonic development (that we at school refer to as the ‘Marchwood system’) that supports and enhances phonic teaching and learning to enable every child to become a confident and fluid reader. At the core of our phonics materials is the vigorous teaching of synthetic phonics. The children learn forty-four sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts and physical actions. Pure sounds are taught so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.
In reading children move up though the school following the colour book bands. They are assessed to move up the reading bands using PM benchmarking which includes not only a reading assessment but a comprehension assessment to test their understanding of what they are reading. Every child in a class reads with an adult at least twice a week. When needed children participate in daily individual focus reading and guided reading groups. Children can take home an individual class reading book, a guided reading book and reading log and a free choice of book from the library each week. Children can access the library system using their individual log in to search our collection in school or on-line at home.
The children learn to write the letter/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds and learn to write words by saying the sounds and graphemes. Children are then taught to use these sounds to write c-v-c (consonant – vowel – consonant) words and then begin to move onto sentence level work. Children are taught a variety of genres of writing including punctuation and grammar using a variety of books, stories, topic links and short films. |We use Pie Corbett “talk for writing” strategies so that children are able to orally rehearse what they wish to write before writing. Writing is underpinned by discrete spelling, punctuation and grammar lessons (SPAG).
Children are taught spoken language skills across the curriculum through individual, small group or whole class work. Some children are identified to follow a more prescriptive spoken language programme called ‘Black Sheep Narrative’ which intensively develops positional language, sequencing and the ability to construct and speak in full sentences.
We use cursive writing across the school. Children are given focused handwriting lessons and also handwriting practise sessions.
Please find below examples of the cursive handwriting we use.