English & Phonics

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English Curriculum

English is a key component in an effective component in an effective early education.

The ability to communicate with others, to express yourself with creativity and imagination through the written word and to read for both purpose and pleasure are vital skills. We endeavour to develop in our children a love of language, both written and spoken, that will go with them into adulthood.

We believe a high standard of speaking, listening, reading and writing skills will place our children at an advantage in their wider curriculum studies. The study of English develops our children’s abilities to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of purposes, so using language to learn and communicate ideas, views and feelings.

It further enables our children to express themselves creatively and imaginatively as they become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama as well as non-fiction and media texts. The assimilation of these skills by our pupils will ensure literacy and (we hope) begin to engender a love of language and literature for life.

 

Aims:

We aim to develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject. Pupils will be given opportunities to interrelate the requirements of English within a broad and balanced approach to the teaching of English across the curriculum, with opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught literacy skills.

Through literature we aim to extend and engage our children beyond their own immediate experience of culture, emotion, spirituality, society and intellect. We aim to explore language in different contexts including formal versus informal, public versus private, slang and dialects and enable them to make use of these in their writing. We strive for children to be confident, happy learners.

 

Our aims in teaching English are:

  • to enable children to speak clearly and audibly in a variety of ways to take
  • account of their listeners.
  • to encourage children to listen with concentration and to be able to identify the main points of what they have heard.
  • to enable children to adapt their speech to a wide range of circumstances
  • and demands.
  • to develop children’s abilities to reflect on their own and others’
  • contributions and the language used.
  • to enable children to evaluate their own and others’ contributions through a range of drama and choral speaking/recitation activities.
  • to develop confident, independent readers through an appropriate focus on
  • word, sentence and text-level knowledge.
  • to hear children read on a regular basis and send reading books home daily with a reading record for teacher and parental contributions.
  • to encourage children to become enthusiastic and reflective readers through contact with challenging and lengthy texts.
  • to help children enjoy writing and recognise its value.
  • to enable children to write with accuracy and meaning in narrative and non-fiction genres.
  • to increase children’s ability to plan, draft and edit to improve their work.

 

Teaching and Learning Styles:

We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in English lessons (as recommended in the National Curriculum 2014). We also incorporate cross-curricular topics as part of our creative curriculum, ensuring that lessons develop the skills required for the children to become confident readers and writers. Wherever possible we encourage children to use and apply their learning in other areas of the curriculum.

Our principal aim is to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in English. We do this through a daily lesson that has a high proportion of whole-class and group teaching. During these lessons children experience a mixture of word level, sentence level and text level work. Guided reading and phonics teaching takes place outside the English lesson.

Children use ICT in English lessons where it enhances their learning. This might be through the use of computers in the ICT suite or in the classroom, tablets in the classroom or use of the Interactive Whiteboard in each class.

Many opportunities to develop our children’s speaking and listening skills are incorporated into our planning. We ensure that even our youngest children can take part in public speaking at our special assemblies, church and secular celebrations, festivals and school productions.